


Brothers in Arms

by pikachumaniac



Category: Sherlock (TV), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, attempts at witty banter, snarking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2017-12-31 03:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 55,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pikachumaniac/pseuds/pikachumaniac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Moriarty has an agreement with his younger brother, to never let their work get personal. That doesn’t mean they’ll stop interfering in each other’s lives.</p><p>In which Q is Moriarty’s brother, and they may or may not spend all of their free time (and respective organization’s discretionary budget) pranking each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Incentive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“A strategy that uses incentives to gain cooperation.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my head, this started off as angst. It quickly veered into crack because that’s just so much more entertaining, and in any case I needed to redeem myself for the massive amounts of unadulterated angst I usually write.
> 
> Unfortunately still not formally beta-ed or Brit-picked, and will be endeavoring to succeed at a weekly update   
> schedule because I have problems.
> 
> Each chapter is titled for a military term, definitions courtesy of Wikipedia and the U.S. Department of Defense dictionary because I have zero military knowledge woot.

        On the day Richard Moriarty was promoted to quartermaster, he walked into his flat to find that sex toys had been placed on every available surface.

        He took in the sight for approximately six-point-two seconds, sighed, and walked right back out to find the nearest pub.

* * *

        Unfortunately, when he returned two hours later – and slightly tipsier – the toys were still there. Since he really didn’t want to go hunting for a new flat at three in the morning, he was forced to sidle into his own flat like a criminal deviant. This did little to improve his mood, which was further soured by a note attached to a bright pink vibrator on his kitchen counter – god, they had better be brand new or heads would _roll_ – which read simply:

  _Since you’re never going to have a life now._

_xoxo, Jim._

         His eye twitched slightly, a nervous tic that he blamed fully on childhood trauma. Unfortunately, as the source of said childhood trauma was still alive, the trauma too was ongoing and unlikely to go away anytime soon.

        Despite several long moments of staring and wishful thinking – all involving massive explosions and rather gory deaths, none of which happened despite his very best efforts to connect with the gods he did not believe in – Q eventually gave in to the inevitable with a sigh. He gingerly cleared a non-dildo covered space on the table (god, there were even toys in his _sink_ ), and pulled out his work phone, new work phone, personal phone, emergency phone, and the in-case-you-are-kidnapped-and-are-in-grave-danger-of-losing-a-limb-or-two emergency phone before he finally reached a non-descript black flip phone. He didn’t bother looking at the screen as he dialed; there was only one number listed.

        The phone had barely rung when a voice purred, “Did you like my gift?”

        “Loved it,” he replied, with only the barest hint of sarcasm. “Why don’t you send me the address of whatever hovel you’re holed up in so I can send you a proper thank you note? Preferably attached to a missile.”

        The voice tsked in feigned disapproval. “Does MI6 know that you are abusing your position to threaten your family?”

        “Does it count as abuse when said family is an internationally-wanted terrorist?”

        James Moriarty, better known as Jim or _that bloody arsehole who I will personally explode in the near future_ , laughed. Oddly enough, this did nothing to cure his twitch, which was quickly evolving into a full-on vein throb. “Please, I wouldn’t be very good at what I do if people _knew_ about me.”

        Difficult as it was, Q managed to ignore that not so subtle jab to demand, “How did you even know I was promoted? That isn’t the sort of information they put in the office newsletter.”

        “I have my ways.” That sing-song taunt haunted all of Q’s nightmares to this very day, and as long as either of them drew breath, that would continue on. “I must say though, your attitude is highly disappointing. Why, one might even think that I didn’t _care_ about your well-being.”

        “You do realize there’s a reason for that?”

        Because Q was well-aware that Jim was also a melodramatic bastard on top of his many other character defects, he was more than ready for the anguished gasp. “You _wound_ me, baby brother, you really do. And after all I do to look after you!”

        “Don’t call me that,” Q replied automatically. “And don’t _say_ that kind of thing. It’s disturbing and practically stalker-esque coming from you, especially since we both know the only time you look for me is over your shoulder.” Which was justifiable, since more than once Q had seriously pondered sending a double-o agent after his brother. It wouldn’t even be an abuse of government resources because as previously mentioned, Jim _was_ a wanted terrorist, and that was before Q had put him on the list. “Also, it makes me think that you’re up to no good.”

        “I’m always up to no good,” was the cheery response.

        He paused, reluctant to concede even that point. But seeing no way around it, he finally sighed, “… true enough. But you’re usually polite enough to keep your criminal enterprises to yourself, rather than letting them come across my doorstep.” _Unless_ … no. No, he refused to consider that possibility because it was too horrifying, and last he had heard, Jim was busy terrorizing Chinese smugglers, and there _he could stay_. And yes, maybe it was wrong to take solace in the suffering of others, but when the alternative was his _own_ suffering, he was willing to make that sacrifice. Q had never claimed to be a champion of the human race, after all.

        Q was sure that Jim knew exactly what he was thinking because Jim was a psychic when it came to making his life miserable, but his older brother was also an arse who _liked making Q’s life miserable_. This explained the tittering and feigned ignorance as Jim rather obviously ignored his last statement. “Now, now, is it a crime to send you a congratulations gift? What kind of older brother would I be if I didn’t reward you for hitting career milestones? What would mummy and daddy say about that?”

        _Mummy and daddy would be rolling in their graves if they knew that you squandered your education to become a criminal mastermind_ , he thought a touch vindictively, but instead tried to exercise some semblance of self-control by pointing out, “Can we not play the dead parents card? It got old when we were teens, and it’s no better now.”

        Jim immediately made him regret his feeble attempts at self-control with the laugh that usually preceded someone coming down with a nasty case of botulism. “When you say things like that, it’s hard to tell who the sociopath in the family is.”

        “Jealous?”

        “Torn,” Jim replied. “I can’t decide if I should be proud of you or try to kill you.”

        “And that describes our childhood in a nutshell.” Q still wasn’t sure how he managed to avoid being suffocated in his sleep, except that his brother had always needed an audience. Still needed one, really, which explained the occasional… chats they had, despite the obvious (and substantial) risks it entailed. But even then, Jim didn’t initiate contact unless he wanted something, so Q decided to cut to the chase. “What do you want, Jim?”

        He was rewarded with another absurdly exaggerated gasp of despair. One day, he would make sure that the despair was genuine, but until that day he would simply have to endure. “I believe you’re the one who contacted me, baby brother.”

        “Only because you wanted me to.”

        Jim sighed in disappointment. This too, was something Q was painfully familiar with, although it was usually accompanied by nagging about his lack of psychopathic tendencies (which was completely unfair since Q _did_ have a murderous streak… he just preferred to channel it constructively). “Shouldn’t you have learned not to cave in to pressure by now? MI6 should really do something about that, if they’re going to trust you with state secrets.”

        He rolled his eyes, knowing that although Jim couldn’t see it, the sentiment would nevertheless be appreciated. “Like you care about national security. Besides, we both know if I hadn’t called, I would probably have come home to find vestal virgins tied to all of my door frames.”

        “Don’t be so dramatic,” Jim said without any apparent irony. “It would have just been the one. Well, maybe two, but that’s only because you won’t tell me your type. Remind me again, is not having a pulse an automatic disqualification? I can never remember your kinks, except that your computers should be filing sexual harassment char-”

        “I will kill you,” Q said in a complete monotone. “One day, Jim, I swear I will _end_ you.”

        Jim just laughed, as he always did in response to Q’s (largely ineffectual) threats, but the darkness in his words was the same that colored their entire relationship. “Don’t make promises you’re not prepared to keep, brother dearest.”

        Q didn’t respond. He really didn’t need to.

        In a rare showing of human compassion, Jim took pity on him, sighing loudly as he said, “Fine, fine, you know me too well. The truth is that I’ll be in town for the foreseeable future, and I only thought it proper to warn you.”

        Q promptly remembered why his brother’s pity usually resulted tears and pleading for a quick death. He himself settled for choking, and Jim waited politely for him to pull himself together (i.e., not expire via self-induced, not-at- _all_ erotic asphyxiation) before he managed to wheeze out, “You’re going to be _in town_?”

        “Exactly! It will be just like old times, Richie, isn’t that exciting?”

        “In town,” he parroted dumbly, still unable to comprehend what was happening. Or more specifically, unable to comprehend why the universe hated him so much that it felt compelled to torment him this way. “As in _London_?”

        Even the sound of mock disapproval was insufficient to pull him out of his horror-induced daze. “That’s generally what the term means, yes. Honestly, I thought MI6 hired you for your brains.”

        “But _why_?” The question came out as a wail, but Q was too distressed by the prospect of close proximity to his brother to care. If Jim could send people to break into his flat even when they were in different countries, he did not want to imagine the fresh hells that would be rained down when the man was in the same _city_. His heart just couldn’t take the stress.

        “Something has caught my interest. No, no, nothing for you to worry about, rest assured,” Jim said soothingly, immediately causing Q to worry. “I give you my word, it won’t affect your work.”

        He hoped Jim wasn’t actually trying to be reassuring because if he was, he was failing _miserably_. But then his brother had never been the sympathetic sort, lacking necessary prerequisites like human emotions and a soul. “Why do I have a feeling that won’t actually be the case?”

        “Because you’re a paranoid bastard,” Jim answered cheerfully. “Although that might not be a bad thing, given our circumstances. But nothing’s changing, baby brother, you know how it is going to be. You stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours. I mean, it’s not like a little domestic terrorism ever killed anyone, hmm?”

        “Domestic _what_?!” His voice may or may not have gone up two octaves, and glass may or may not have shattered in the process.

        “Oh lighten _up_ already, I was only joking. I mean, it’s not like I want the wrath of MI6 brought down upon me. It’s just so bad for business!” Trust Jim to be practical when it came to work, although somehow Jim’s work usually ended up on Q’s doorstep (which in turn resulted in a massive headache) no matter how unrelated they seemed at first glance. “And I doubt you would want to deal with all the paperwork from killing your only living relative. Tell me, what would psych say about that?”

        Considering how his life would only get better with the loss of said only living relative, he had a feeling that psych would just think that he was on some type of hallucinogen that improved his sunny disposition. Then his only concern would be psych harassing him for the name of said drug, as they would be wanting to prescribe it to the three-quarters of MI6 who had politely offered to cause bodily harm to the next person who asked about their _feelings_. He decided to keep that thought to himself though, in case it gave Jim any ideas. He had enough concerns to deal with without having his sarcasm backfire in his face.

        “Well,” Jim said finally, once it became clear there wasn’t going to be a response, either verbal or missile-related. Q had learned as a small child that his brother was like a ghost sometimes; if you closed your eyes and pretended he wasn’t there, eventually he would go away. “It’s been lovely catching up and all, but I do have a crime syndicate to run. That little gift of yours was expensive, I’ll have you know.”

        “Take it back,” Q immediately replied although he knew better than to engage in petty things like hope and optimism. “Please, you can have it all back.”

        Jim pretended to consider this proposition for approximately half a second. “… No, that just seems rather unhygienic.”

        “Maybe you should have thought about that before you left them there,” he snapped. It wasn’t the only thing snapping: his self-control, his brain, his _sanity_.

        “How was I supposed to know you would be so ungrateful? I try to anticipate your needs, baby brother, and this is the thanks I get?”

        Q snorted; the very thought of Jim caring about anyone except himself was laughable at best. There was a reason why his brother was so successful at his chosen career, and it didn’t have anything to do with consideration for others. Morality was a definite disadvantage when it came to torturing and killing people for profit, but he couldn’t really judge too much as morality could also be a disadvantage when it came to torturing and killing people in the name of Queen and country. Sometimes the line between their chosen paths was depressingly thin, but either way, that still didn’t justify his brother being a gigantic dick who deserved to get eaten alive by a pack of rabid squirrels. “You deserve a lot more than thanks, that’s for sure.”

        Something decidedly _lethal_.

        “You can thank me in person.” Coming from Jim, that was nothing short of a threat, especially since physical contact between the two usually resulted in someone coming close to missing an eyeball. And that had been back when they were _kids_. “In the meantime, make sure they don’t work you too hard. Although speaking of work….”

        Jim’s voice was using that sing-song tone that made Q’s blood freeze in its veins. Before he could even think to interrupt or throw the phone back like it had suddenly turned into a poisonous viper, his brother said, “I thought you might be interested to know that I heard something will be going down in Istanbul.”

        “Istanbul?” he repeated, thrown by the sudden change in topic. Under normal circumstances he was used to that sort of thing, but this seemed… different. And not in a good way. “Jim, what are you-”

        “Ta for now, baby brother.” And with that, the phone hung up.

* * *

        When Q had been promoted to quartermaster, M had let him bask in the glory of his new position for approximately two-point-one seconds before she proceeded to make him regret his continued existence.

        He wasn’t sure what had broken him: the thirteen binders of documents outlining all of his new duties in microscopic print, the paperwork requiring two hundred and sixty-three signatures swearing his everlasting fidelity to his country, the not so subtle warnings about what horrors would befall him and all of his descendants if he didn’t abide by said everlasting fidelity, or the immediate influx of expense reports from double-o agents not handling their toys properly. All he knew was that it hadn’t taken him long to start considering his own early retirement, and that was _before_ M had launched into a startlingly detailed account about the gory fates that had befallen his predecessors (he still wasn’t sure if she was being serious, given that the last three quartermasters had quietly retired – with the exception of Major Boothroyd, who had to be forcibly extricated from his desk by his long-suffering wife after he had broken his twenty-sixth promise to voluntarily retire to the countryside).

        He could understand Major Boothroyd’s reluctance though; the thrill of being named quartermaster – the _youngest_ quartermaster in the history of MI6, thank you very much – was exhilarating, and he had almost been able to forget his concerns once the cramping in his wrist had gone away.

        Unfortunately, it looked like M had a better understanding of the realities of his position than recent history did, and she was likely right that his new position would be sending him to an early grave. Well, that and the fact that he was related to a psychopathic criminal mastermind. After all, it was the combination of the two that had him at his desk for a straight thirty-six hours, running on the fumes from his leftover mug of Earl Grey because no one had time to breathe, let alone make proper tea. It had just been one thing after another since Q had sounded the alarm, waking Tanner at two in the morning with a slightly hysterical and very shrieky phone call, and in the process earning himself a permanent spot on Tanner’s shit list, right next to the famed 007.

        Speaking of 007, the agent was living up to his infamous reputation as he tore through Istanbul, tearing through the Grand Bazaar without any consideration for its cultural value and causing a few car accidents along the way. To everyone’s surprise (and Q’s personal consternation), of the two agents in the vicinity of Turkey, it wasn’t 007 who was unreachable but 005, and 007 had been dispatched with curt instructions from M on how to find Ronson and the list. But for all their efforts and desperate scramble, they had arrived too late.

        It was probably very, _very_ wrong, but he hadn’t been able to keep in his soft sigh of relief when Bond had confirmed that the hard drive was missing. Fortunately, it was interpreted by everyone around him as dismay, but that was only because no one knew exactly how terrified Q was that Jim was using him as a distraction or to run MI6 ragged just for the hell of it. He hadn’t thought it was Jim’s style, but Jim had a nasty way of defying expectations. Luckily, it hadn’t come to that, but there was still the not insignificant concern about a list that _shouldn’t even exist_ falling into the hands of the enemy.

        And that was exactly what was going to happen. Even as M yelled at Eve Moneypenny to take the bloody shot, Q just knew that it wasn’t going to be enough. Jim would just laugh it off and remind him again that he was a paranoid bastard, but he was a paranoid bastard for a _reason_ and his brother wouldn’t have alerted him to this if it was going to be simple. It broke all of their rules about keeping out of each other’s professional lives, but that was the least of his worries as the shot echoed through the room.

        For one long moment, it seemed like every single person in the building was holding their breath.

        “Agent down,” Moneypenny whispered.

        Luckily, everyone was too distracted by the news of the immortal 007’s demise and the loss of the list to notice Q’s phone pinging. The phone wasn’t even supposed to have texting capabilities, but he knew better than to question things as he pulled it out to look at the message waiting for him.

        _I warned you_.


	2. Blast Wave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“A sharply defined wave of increased pressure rapidly propagated through a surrounding medium from a center of detonation or similar disturbance.”_

        Q woke up to the whirl of machinery, his body aching, and a head that felt like it had been stuffed full of cotton. He wished he could say that this was an unusual situation to be in, but considering how many times his body had just given up after forty-eight straight hours in the lab, he was disturbingly used to waking up with a microchip trying to permanently lodge itself into his skin after he made the mistake of falling asleep on it.

        There was, however, a hand waving in front of his face like a swarm of deranged fruit flies, which was… different. Huh. He decided to dismiss that one as an unpleasant hallucination. It was just safer for his sanity.

        Looking away from the hand ( _why was it still there?_ ), he squinted at his surroundings, trying to bring the world into focus. Without his glasses, everything appeared as a white blob, which was confusing because the lab was mostly gray (he just couldn’t be bothered to find an interior decorator who was both willing to work around flammable, toxic, and/or explosive materials that existed in exuberant quantities throughout the lab _and_ could pass MI6’s security checks. Surprisingly, people who fell into that first category typically didn’t quite make it through psych’s extensive testing). White, some un-addled part of his mind helpfully supplied, usually meant _hospital_ when it came to MI6, but the rest of his brain was struggling to make the connection between hospital and his own situation. He was at least able to process the information that his being in a hospital was probably Not a Good Thing, nor the fact that he couldn’t remember why he was in the hospital in the first place.

        He was, however, finding it difficult to care because really now, that hand gesticulating wildly at him was getting _very_ distracting. Q frowned; he couldn’t remember his delusions being quite this irritating. That could mean only one of two things: he was becoming severely masochistic, or it wasn’t a delusion.

        He sincerely hoped it was the former.

        This deeply felt desire became especially true when he realized that someone was speaking, although he was having problems making out individual words. The voice sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it, especially with that ringing in his ears. Again, he knew he should be concerned by this, but he chose instead to close his eyes in the hope that doing so would make everything go away.

        Unfortunately, as was so often the case in his life, this gesture had the exact opposite of its intended effect as the words crystalized into something coherent, and whoever was speaking to him rattled on, “-and seriously, baby brother? You’ve only been quartermaster for three months and you’re already getting yourself blown up? That’s just sad, it really is, but not entirely unexpected given-”

        There was something about the voice that was setting off alarm bells even more so than the words themselves, which he was still having problems comprehending. But it was enough to make him open his eyes again, wincing at the stark white and the blurriness and that damnable _ringing_ in his ears. He could make out a figure (still there, so probably not a hallucination then) but not much more than that, and he tried to work through who was the most likely to be visiting him in a hospital. “Tanner?”

        Blissful silence. It didn’t last. “… MI6’s chief of staff calls you ‘baby brother’? Do I need to have a word with him, or do you have some kinks you would like to share with the class?”

        “Shit.” This was finally enough to snap him back into reality and the horrors that awaited him there. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, _shit_.”

        Jim Moriarty sighed dramatically, and Q was stupidly glad for his temporary blindness because if he knew his brother at all, the man was probably pouting. Whole cities had died screaming in agony as a result of that pout. “Honestly, this is how you greet your only family after all of these years? You really do make me question who the psychopath of the family is.”

        Q didn’t answer, too busy grabbing for his glasses even though jamming them on just sent fresh waves of agony through his brain. Still, that pain was nothing compared to the hell he would face if he did something foolish (i.e., faint or jump out a window), so he gritted his teeth even as he demanded, “What are you doing here?”

        His brother leaned back on the hospital chair, which Q hoped sincerely was as uncomfortable as it looked. “I just wanted to let you know that this wasn’t my fault. I didn’t blow up MI6.”

        “… oh,” he said intelligently, settling down in his bed as well. He was finding it surprisingly easy to relax, despite the presence of his personal nightmare and all this talk about blowing up MI6. Explosions at MI6 were not… uncommon, since inventing weapons and tiny explosives had an unfortunate side effect of backfiring in one’s face every once in a while. But he couldn’t recall doing anything that would set the “Days Without a Workplace Injury” clock back to zero, and Jim wouldn’t show up for something like that even if it did put him in the hospital. He looked over at his brother, who seemed to know more than he certainly did at the moment, and asked hesitantly, “Is that why my head feels so… woozy?”

        Jim shrugged, his smile amused. Amused was good. Q would always prefer amused because when Jim got bored, the body count tended to quadruple. “That’s probably the drugs. They got you on the good stuff.”

        “And… why am I on drugs?” He wasn’t usually this slow, he swore, but at least now that he knew he was high on something, he could blame that instead of his own weaknesses.

        “Because you got caught up in the blast,” Jim said with far more patience than Q could ever remember him possessing. “Honestly, baby brother, I thought I taught you better than to get between an explosion and a national security building.”

        That would imply Jim had ever taught him anything other than knowing when to duck and run for cover. Although when he put it in those terms, that might explain his brother’s profound disappointment. Still, that didn’t explain the whole blowing up bit, which he was still having problems wrapping his brain around. “There was an explosion?”

        The look of absolute despair on his brother’s face might also have been a reason for his asking. Q was starting to understand why Jim took so much joy out of ruining his life; it was most satisfactory to be on the giving side. Of course, since it was Jim, the despair didn’t last long as his brother quickly decided to ignore his not entirely feigned confusion. Ignorance was bliss, after all. “It’s been all over the news, to the point that even I couldn’t ignore it. Mind, I was going to because I assumed you were good enough to not get involved, but Moran informed me that you were in the hospital. It was really very vexing as I was in the middle of a very important business meeting when he told me, but alas, family does come first.”

        Unless Jim meant first on a hit list, he was not inclined to agree. This was why he was not quite ready to believe that his brother was there for some benevolent purpose, as evidenced by his rather skeptically asked, “You found out that I was in the hospital and came… to visit me?” _Without an explosive device of your own?_ went unsaid, but was heavily, heavily implied.

        Jim frowned in what resembled confusion, apparently unsure why this very reasonable question was being asked of him. “But isn’t that what families are supposed to do for each other?”

        Even in Q’s drugged state, he could immediately see the fundamental flaw in that premise. “You appear to be mistaking us for a normal family.”

        “You said it, not me,” Jim said easily, flicking imaginary lint off his immaculately clean suit in a thinly veiled effort to show exactly how little he cared about Q being in the hospital. Although that didn’t stop him from trying to guilt Q, as he reminded him (rather petulantly), “Need I remind you that I cut a meeting short just to come see you? That should count for something, little brother.”

        There were two problems with this. First, Jim was not the kind of person to do anything for anyone without expecting something in return. And Q _really_ didn’t like being indebted to his brother because the kind of favors Jim wanted were not the kind that he was willing to give, even putting aside the body count such favors usually entailed.

        Second, Jim kept talking about some _business_ meeting, but all Q could think was how odd that claim was given… “Why do you smell like chlorine?”

        Although Q knew his brother far better than he would have liked, even he could not read much in Jim’s closed-off expression. And given his brother’s fondness for melodrama, it was these moments that revealed that despite Q’s work with double-o agents and international criminals, his brother was still the most dangerous man he would ever know. But Q had known that since they were tweens, so even with the drugs fogging up his brain, he had the self-control necessary to suppress the shiver that threatened to run through his body.

        He didn’t know how long they were like that, with Q trying to appear calm and unthreatening while Jim debated murdering him where he lay. It only ended when Jim went back to picking off that imaginary lint, studiously looking away from Q as he said, “You really are slow, Richie. I told you I had an important business meeting.”

        Q frowned, still not sure why Jim was insisting on connecting the two. He knew he was going to regret it, especially since he really didn’t wantto know (and would almost certainly be better off not knowing). But he _did_ need to know that he wasn’t suffering from aromatic delusions (perhaps smelling chlorine was a sign of stress-induced cancerous tumors, of which Q was at very high risk of), forcing him to ask, “An important business meeting at a swimming pool?”

        “Look, I don’t give you grief about your work, do I?” Jim said, just a tad defensively, which was all the answer he needed.

        If Q was a better person, or if Jim was a better brother, he might have been merciful and let the matter drop. But since neither of those things were true, he wasn’t about to lose an opportunity to needle his brother, especially since he so rarely had this advantage. “Actually, you do.”

        “That isn’t the point,” Jim replied airily, brushing away Q’s comments with the lazy flick of a wrist. “The point is that I am here. Caring. You like people caring, don’t you? That’s why you insist on working on the side of the angels.”

        “I work on the ‘side of the angels’ for the sole purpose of irritating you,” he corrected, and tried not to consider how the truth of that statement probably did make him a bit of a sociopath. But considering who his brother was and how he could have otherwise been channeling his… frustrations, the world should be damned grateful that he was so petty. “We can’t all have greater aspirations.”

        “Greater aspirations… is that what you are calling my little endeavors? You’re not usually so kind in your descriptions,” Jim chuckled, enjoying Q’s grimace. “I must say though, I _like_ you this way. You’re so much less judgmental when you’re drugged.”

        Q had a feeling he was going to have to be testing his food for drugs in the very near future. “I judge because I care. And someone has to keep you on your toes.”

        Again, Jim just looked amused, if by amused one meant the expression a person had when their pet poodle did something vaguely interesting. “Yes, but that someone isn’t you.”

        He felt like he should respond to that, but it was difficult to do so as the drugs began to take their toll on his mind again. (There was also that pesky fact that Jim was right. Jim was _always_ right about these things, which begged the question of how Q had managed to grow up with his self-esteem relatively intact.) Perhaps his brother sensed that he was starting to slip away again, as Jim leaned over to ruffle his hair in a gesture that was almost affectionate and most certainly meant to be as annoying as it actually was. “Besides, that should be the other way around.”

        “You don’t have to take care of me anymore, Jim.” The words slipped out before he could stop them; if he remembered this conversation later he would definitely be blaming the drugs because there was no way in hell he would have said that if he still had his wits (and any sense of self-preservation).

        He thought he saw Jim smile, but it was hard to tell as his brother reached over to take off his glasses and place them neatly on the table. “Nonsense. I need you to stay alive.” And just in case Q in his drug-induced state would be stupid enough to believe that maybe their relationship had improved with distance, Jim followed up by saying, “After all, no one is allowed to hurt you except me.”

        “Always knew you were a selfish bastard,” he murmured, with no real passion. Now that the shock of his brother’s presence had completely worn off (despair and melancholy didn’t exactly provide the same adrenaline rush), the drugs were kicking in full force. It was easy to give in, shutting his eyes and letting his mind drift. It probably said something about him that he could let his guard down around someone so dangerous, but he was tired and he had been in an explosion. That had to give him some liberties.

        “Get some rest, baby brother,” Jim said, his voice almost soothing in its emptiness. “You’re going to be needing it.”

* * *

        Jim had been right about that. Q liked to think he was used to long work days, but he was cheerfully proven wrong by the incident informally known as “Skyfall” and more formally as “The One where 007 Swept in and Not Everything was Completely Buggered.” The formal name was very technical because even though they had ultimately recovered the list and neutralized Silva as a threat, the loss of M had overshadowed any “success” the mission might have entailed.

        Not to mention that, on a more personal level, there was that tiny matter of Q letting Silva hack MI6.

        Q still didn’t know how he could have been so foolish as to let that happen. Growing up in a home where waking up the next morning was not guaranteed had imbued him with a healthy sense of paranoia, but somehow he had let himself get caught up in the moment. He had been arrogant, showing off his skills to MI6 and – perhaps especially – 007. Because it had rankled on him, the way the agent had so obviously looked down at him, even if he had got in a few shots of his own during their meeting at the National Gallery. He had needed to demonstrate that James Bond and secret agents really were a thing of the past, and instead had proven the complete opposite. He was surprised, really, that Bond hadn’t rubbed it in further, but he didn’t need 007 to keep him humble.

        He had his brother for that.

        “I can’t believe you let him hack you.”

        Q sighed, shuffling quickly for a convenient alleyway like a common criminal as it didn’t seem like this conversation would be over before he reached headquarters. He had seriously considered not picking up the phone, but given the likely consequences of avoiding this call (he would probably come to the office to find sex toys there as well, and he’d had enough trouble discarding all of the ones Jim had left at his flat so that he really didn’t need a repeat performance), he had forced himself to pick up. He was already regretting it. Maybe he could have figured out a way to weaponize vibrators. Stranger things had happened.

        “I can’t believe you _know_ about that,” Q said, although he didn’t really mean it. State secrets were a mere formality for Jim, one that his brother declined to recognize. But that didn’t stop him from cursing Jim out; that’s what family _did_ , after all. “Seriously, Jim, what the fuck.”

        “Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?”

        “I was rather hoping you would expire messily before then, yes.” That was more likely than Jim not finding out and rubbing it in his face, but alas, it seemed that the international terrorist community was not so kind. Or competent. He had expected that too; his brother always was the slippery sort. It would have been impressive, if it wasn’t so maddening.

        Jim made a humming sound, specially designed to drive him _insane_. “How goes the promising career in espionage, if I dare ask?”

        _Like you don’t already know_ , he thought irritably, but instead replied as calmly as he could, “I haven’t been fired yet, if that was what you were hoping for.”

        “Why should I have to hope for something I could simply cause to happen?” was the pleasant, unfortunately very accurate response. “I’m surprised though. Raoul Silva was an amateur at best, and yet the amount of damage you people allowed him to accomplish makes me think that the future of the British empire is bleak indeed.”

        “An amateur?” he repeated, and now it really was a struggle to keep his voice even in the face of Jim’s mockery. “If you thought that, why did you send us after him?”

        Q had all of his suspicions validated when Jim immediately responded, “I’m not sure what you mean by that, baby brother.”

        The answer was too quick, too casual, too _prepared_. Of course Jim would have expected him to have figured it out; the bastard was arrogant and a right pain in the arse, but definitely not stupid. People who were stupid didn’t usually last long in their lines of work, although the consequences for stupidity in Jim’s professional field tended to be more blood-splattered.

        Abruptly, Q decided that he’d had enough. At this point, he just didn’t have the energy to engage in this merry dance of theirs. He was tired from the upheaval caused by M’s death, embarrassed by his own arrogance, and more to the point _uninterested_ in skulking in alleyways so that he could talk to his criminal brethren and freeze in the process. Jim might not like it, but he wasn’t around to be his brother’s personal whipping boy, so he chose to be blunt. “You didn’t have to warn me.”

        “Familial obligation,” Jim replied without missing a beat. It seemed that even his impatience was to be expected, and his free hand twitched for a keyboard to send a rocket flying towards his brother. “Mummy and daddy would be so upset if I let you get killed. Why else do you think I was so dismayed when you still nearly managed that? Honestly Richie, you need to learn some survival skills.”

        “I avoid you, don’t I?” he shot back.

        Jim laughed, “So you’re not completely hopeless then. That’s good to know.”

        “You can stop trying to care, Jim. This caring business never did suit you.”

        “You really don’t give me enough credit,” Jim complained, and Q really had to struggle to bite back his response. It was a good thing he was alone in that alley, since he probably looked like he was trying to break his own teeth. Even muggers would probably give him wide berth based on the slightly psychotic gleam in his eyes. “I was quite upset when you were hurt. In fact, if 007 hadn’t got to Mr. Rodriguez first, I would certainly have involved myself to protect the family name. In a way, it’s almost a shame, really. I would have killed him _much_ more slowly than Mr. Bond did.”

        It was moments like these that Q knew that as much as he tried to deny it, they really were brothers. Because the appropriate reaction would have been horror or guilt at such a proclamation, but Q couldn’t even be bothered to put up any token resistance. Hell, a part of him wanted to offer suggestions for prolonging Silva’s suffering, although he preferred the man dead and buried. They were all better off with the man gone, and Q only wished that 007 had done the job when he had his chance on that island off of Macau.

        He kept this to himself though, since Jim would only rub it into his face for the rest of their lives (or better yet, tattooed onto his forehead). Which depending on how he maintained this delicate balancing act, could either be very long or very short (but absolutely nothing in-between). Instead, he asked, “So I am supposed to believe that you weren’t just using me to bump off the competition.”

        “There’s not much competition in revenge,” Jim replied, ever practical. “People who just want revenge tend to go down in a blaze of glory, and they burn down everything around them in the process. It’s bad for business and profitability.”

        Q smiled wryly, safe in the knowledge that Jim couldn’t see it. This lie, more than anything, explained what his brother’s motivations were. While for some people, money would have been enough of a reason, Q knew that the only thing Jim really cared about was not being bored. He didn’t care about the money, except as a way of proving that he was smarter and better than anyone else. If Raoul Silva was anything to his brother, it was as a potential threat to whatever newest game Jim was setting up. He wondered if it had something to do with why his brother was back in town, in which case-

        “Why are you hiding in an alleyway?”

        It was only because Q had been conditioned as a small child to be used to sudden shocks that he was able to not embarrass himself in his reaction. That didn’t mean his heart didn’t skip a beat, although he was able to keep his face calm as he quickly flipped the phone shut – a little rejection might do his brother some good – and turned to find James Bond looking at him, a bemused expression on the agent’s face. Q knew there wasn’t any point in trying to look inconspicuous (it was a lost cause already), choosing instead to slip the phone back in his pocket and say dryly, “It’s not nice to spy on your colleagues, 007.”

        “Who said I was spying?” Bond returned. “I just happened to be walking by and saw you. Thought I would say hello.”

        Q’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. The thought of Bond walking to work instead of driving some ludicrously expensive vehicle that he would no doubt destroy in spectacular fashion was a tad inconceivable, and his deep-set paranoia went into high gear. “If you’re trying to get on my good side because you destroyed my equipment and are trying to avoid a lecture, you can forget it. Just remember that for every piece of equipment you lose, I have to fill out ten forms. Thanks to you, my tendinitis is never going away.”

        “I do like to make sure everyone has something to remember me by,” Bond replied cheerily. It might have been charming if this didn’t confirm that Q was going to be filling out a _lot_ of paperwork that day, which made him want less to swoon and more to _strangle_ Bond where they stood. Perhaps he would be able to find a nice snowdrift to bury the body, or hell, he might even be willing to ask Jim for some assistance.

        “You’re not the only one,” Q mumbled as he started to make his way back to the main street, stopping to look Bond straight in the eyes. Bond’s eyebrows raised but Q ignored it, straightening his jacket and pasting an insincere smile on his face. “So, 007. What do you have for me today?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t have any idea how the timelines for _Sherlock_ and _Skyfall_ compare to each other, and I’m not even going to try to make it realistic. There just aren’t enough drugs in the universe to make me capable of that.


	3. Attrition Warfare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“A strategy of wearing down an enemy to the point of collapse through continuous loss of personnel and materiel.”_

        It had started when they were children.

        Little things, for the most part, but it had rapidly escalated as they had grown older. Most people found it difficult to sustain the sheer creativity of children, and oftentimes lost it altogether, but most people were not the brother of one James Moriarty. Richard’s imagination had grown rather than been suppressed by the demands of adulthood out of sheer necessity, but it was a trait that had served him well as he made his way up the ranks of MI6.

        Before he had become Q, he’d been more… limited in the ways he could show his affections for his brother. It hadn’t always worked (because, unlike certain criminal masterminds, he actually had to pay taxes on his legitimate income and couldn’t just steal his equipment), like the time he had finally managed to hack Jim’s phone and change the ringtone to “Stayin’ Alive.” Even though he’d had it set to go off at random intervals – specifically between the hours of 11:06 p.m. and 5:49 a.m. – Jim had found it enjoyable rather than annoying. The bastard even sent him a fruit basket (only half of which was laced with laxatives, the charmer) in thanks. He later found out that Jim had managed to get rid of the random timer, but had kept the ringtone.

        More successful was the time he had redirected all of Jim’s incoming e-mails to the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy “It’s Good to Talk” website, in the hope that some of Jim’s associates would rethink their chosen career path. From what he had heard, several of the network’s high-ranking officials had defected as a result. However, judging from the trail of bodies Jim’s vengeance had left, the defection hadn’t lasted very long.

        Still, for all his ingenuity, his failures had outnumbered his victories. But now that he was Q, with Silva out of the way and only the run-of-the-mill terrorists to deal with, Q had both the time and the resources to make good use of that imagination, and he was determined to make the most of it.

* * *

        It wasn’t, he would maintain if ever pulled in front of a government inquiry, a misuse of his powers as head of Q-branch. In fact, he would argue that he was doing a public service by sabotaging a recognized terrorist entity, and besides, _someone_ had to test his inventions outside of the lab before they were fit to go into the field. And if it just so happened to result in the maiming of his brother… well, that was merely a happy bonus.

        “Did you have someone dial for you?” he asked hopefully when he picked up his phone.

        “As if,” Jim scoffed, sounding annoyingly pain-free. Q sighed, not entirely surprised by his brother’s continued survival; if it was that easy, this would have been resolved years ago. “One of my men got his hands on your gift before it even reached me. Not that he has two hands anymore.”

        Q reached out for a pen to take notes as he said in a rather unconvincing tone, “Shame, that. Now did it take off the hand completely or just a couple of fingers?”

        “Not even,” Jim tutted disapprovingly, causing him to scowl at the implication that his invention had not worked as it was supposed to. But his brother was not content with _implications_ , continuing, “Really not one of your better inventions, baby brother. Besides the copious amount of blood flow, he was barely hurt.”

        Their definitions of “hurt” always had differed. It had been one of those little things they had disagreed on, along with when it was appropriate to murder someone for bad behavior. Still, he dutifully took his notes (for the sake of research, of course), even as he pointed out, “It’s meant to disable, not to kill or even maim. Also it wasn’t supposed to go off early, since it’s _supposed_ to be react to your DNA. Unless you’ve been hiding a secret sibling from me?”

        It probably said a lot (of terrible things) about their relationship that Jim didn’t bother asking where he had got his hands on the bastard’s genetic material. “Wouldn’t matter if I did. He’s a bit dead now.”

        Although he was in his locked office, with no one around, he forced himself to suppress the flinch. It would be good practice for the future, since Jim had made it abundantly clear that his hospital bedside visit was not going to be the last of their face-to-face meetings. More importantly, he was able to keep his voice casual as he replied, “That seems a bit extreme, even for you. I mean, technically he still has both of his hands.”

        “I was going to kill him anyway, so don’t worry your head over it.”

        “I wasn’t planning to,” he lied through his teeth. While he knew that anyone who got into business with Jim was just asking for an early retirement – and just to be clear, “retirement” was a very pleasant euphemism for a _gory and agonizing death_ – he still took issue with Jim’s casual treatment of death. He knew that he shouldn’t, given that so often those people were terrorists in their own right, and if Jim didn’t take care of them now it was all too likely that _he_ would be in the future. Maybe not directly, but he couldn’t exactly claim to be free of responsibility when it was his technology or directions that resulted in their death. But just because it was inevitable didn’t mean it should be _easy_. “Well, thank you for the information. I’ll keep that in mind for the next present I send your way.”

        “Yes, about that, Richie,” Jim said before he could hang up and flee for his life. “An exploding pen, really? I thought when you became Q, you had some grandiose notions of doing away with those pitiable relics.”

        “There’s only so much I can do when those pitiable relics keep clamoring for their toys.” Of course he knew that Jim meant a _different_ relic, and of course he knew only one of those relics had pushed back when he had given his speech about how exploding pens were a thing of the past. The others had looked disappointed and/or annoyed, but 007 was the only one who had given him a reason to reconsider his thoughts on the matter. So, in recompense, he would give the man that damn exploding pen he wanted, although he would be sure to make some improvements beforehand.

        Improvements that would, conveniently enough, take some time. There was no reason to hurry, especially with Bond merrily destroying all of his equipment which, unlike the pens, were _not_ designed to explode in the first place. Some of them had even been designed specifically _not_ to explode, but by this point Q knew better than to question 007’s destructive abilities. The man’s reputation certainly preceded him.

        “It seems to be a bit counterintuitive,” his brother chided. “Given that your secret agents seem to be all over the news thanks to their predilection for blowing things up, your giving them more things to explode doesn’t seem to do much for the reputation of your supposedly secret organization. Why, compared to you lot, I’m practically an unknown.”

        Even though he has railed about the same thing to Moneypenny and Tanner after 002 had made the home page of CNN for destroying a petting zoo, he didn’t appreciate his brother’s unnecessary input. He, as a long-suffering employee of MI6 who _filled out the damn paperwork_ _for that incident_ was entitled to bitch about it. Jim, who was more likely to be the cause of paperwork one day, was not.

        “Keep going on like that and I’ll make you a Facebook page to send to the CIA, and then we’ll see how secret your organization is,” he snapped. “I’ll call it the Organization for General Mayhem and Irritating Villainy.”

        Luckily, Q had not been expecting to impress his brother. Otherwise, he was doomed to failure, as Jim finally said after a very, very long silence, “That’s a terrible name. It doesn’t even spell anything.”

        And there was that eye twitch again. It had been ever so long since they had been acquainted. “It’s _meant_ to be terrible, you utter prat.”

        “I think it’s a sign that you’ve been watching too much of the telly,” Jim continued on, ignoring him. He was good at that, the ignoring bit. There had been times growing up that Q had been utterly convinced he was invisible. “Rots your brain, that stuff does. Although that begs the question of how you even have time to watch the television. Shouldn’t you be working? If MI6 is failing to keep you occupied, perhaps I should start sending you some gifts of my own to keep you occupied.”

        The thought of Jim’s presents were enough to make him feel faint. He covered for it valiantly though, returning, “Who do you think you are, my mother?”

        He regretted the words as soon as he said it, and even more so when Jim laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh. “Considering how I raised you after our dearest parents passed, it isn’t that too far of a stretch.”

        Q let out a soft hiss, barely caring if it was audible or not over the phone. It was never good to go down this conversation path, although then it was never good to have conversation with his brother at all. One, however, was inevitable (until Q finally managed to off the bastard, anyway); the other could usually be avoided with minimal fuss. After all, he didn’t like to bring it up because of all those messy implications, while Jim didn’t like to bring it up because it implied that he looked out for anyone but himself. Still, he wasn’t about to let his brother have the last word, not on this. “You seem to be confusing putting food on the table with raising someone.”

        “Not when putting food on the table meant you could finish your education,” Jim reminded him.

        He shook his head, not caring that Jim couldn’t see it. Or at least he hoped Jim couldn’t see it; one could never be sure, given his far-reaching network and blatant disregard for the rules. He hadn’t quite forgotten (or forgiven) the time his brother had paid his university roommate to spy on him. “You’re not guilting me with that, Jim. We’re long past that time, and I refuse to let you hold that over my head. Not now, not ever again.”

        “Oh Richie,” Jim crooned, and Q seriously considering changing his identity and moving to Tibet to become a monk. Or Antarctica. He’d heard that seals were really quite friendly, and that penguins were delicious. “It’s not _guilt_ if it’s what happened. You’d do well to remember that, given the recent change in management.”

        Q’s mouth went dry at the implications. It was not idle threat, and although Mallory seemed to be the reasonable sort of man, the reasonable sort of man probably would not appreciate what Jim had to say.

        “But,” Jim continued before he could say anything, or at least squeak in dismay, “if you want me to send you to bed without your supper like mummy used to, I can definitely do that.”

        He could practically feel himself turn red, which was an accomplishment considering the whiplash his brother had caused with his sudden change of tone from dangerous to psychotic cheerfulness. If this conversation went any further he would probably end up with a broken neck, which wouldn’t suit either of them (because Q liked breathing and Jim would want to be personally present at his demise).

        “Go to hell,” he suggested helpfully, and hung up before Jim could say anything or he did something he would no doubt regret.

* * *

        It didn’t stop there, of course. If Q was the kind to give up so easily, he wouldn’t have lasted long at either MI6 or life. So he sent a few more computer viruses Jim’s way, including one particularly lovely one that changed his computer desktop screen to _Twilight_ porn, of which the internet had produced so much of (too much, in his mind, although he generally thought of the books as the closest thing to hell that his brother hadn’t already thought up). Granted, they might not have much use in the field, but Q was of the humble opinion that fieldwork was overrated anyway.

        Because Jim was annoyingly correct about his not having time for a life thanks to his promotion, he often found himself working on his little… side projects while at work. And while he certainly appreciated being able to use someone else’s electricity to even the playing field between the errant siblings, there were… downsides to said someone else being a not-so-secret secret organization. Namely that the employees were more observant than the usual lot, and certain members of staff seemed to feel that because they spent so much time getting shot at in the name of Queen and country, they were entitled to ignore personal boundaries as well.

        Case in point.

        “What’s this?” Without asking for something as pedestrian as _permission_ , 007 reached down to take hold of the pamphlet Q had foolishly left in the rubbish bin.

        Q didn’t respond, too busy staring as he tried to process exactly how Bond had got into his locked office. Wouldn’t that be perfect if the one piece of equipment the man didn’t manage to destroy would also be one that could be used to invade his privacy? It did quite fit in with Bond’s reputation for being positively infuriating. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

        His pointed observation was ignored. Apparently one did not become a double-o agent without losing all respect for direction from senior staff, along with common sense, avoidance of pain and death, and self-control. It probably didn’t help that so many people took one look at him and decided that it would be fun to try and walk all over him, thanks to his looking like a particularly sickly sixteen-year old child (he freely blamed childhood stress for that one).

        Although that was not really fair to Bond, who beyond the initial dismay all the double-o agents exhibited as soon as they took one look at him, had not treated him as a toddler who had accidentally wandered into MI6 and found himself conscripted into service. This wasn’t to say that Bond didn’t drive him mad, but at least it wasn’t patronizing. At this point in his life, Q was willing to take what he could get.

        “I always did wonder what you people did in your free time,” Bond commented idly, flipping the page with an expression that flickered between amusement and pure horror. “Now I’m not so sure that was a good idea.”

        “That’s what you get for looking without asking,” Q replied without sympathy, plucking the papers from Bond’s grasp and shoving it into a teetering pile of requisition forms. The hope was that Bond’s allergy to paperwork would keep his prying fingers away, even if he knew it was already too late. “Is there some reason why you are cluttering up my office, 007?”

        Bond gave his office a pointed look, “I don’t really think you need any help with that, do you.”

        “There is creativity in chaos.”

        “Is that what you tell the cleaning ladies when you find them buried in paperwork and electronics in the morning?”

        “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said tartly. “I banned them from cleaning my office quite some time ago.” He decided to leave out the part about how they simply refused to come near his labs, or the fact that he spent so much time in his office that even when they had still deigned to clean his space, he was there to keep them out of trouble. As socially inept as he was at times, even he didn’t need someone to tell him exactly how pathetic that sounded.

        Judging from the agent’s expression though, he didn’t need to say anything, although Bond was kind enough not to comment on it. However, Bond was not kind enough to _leave_ , instead seating himself in the one chair not already occupied by half-completed inventions (Q always kept one free, in case M or Tanner stopped by for an unannounced visit. It wasn’t that he cared for their comfort, but the stink eye they gave him made him uncomfortably aware that they not only controlled funding to his department, but the timing of his next pay raise). The agent didn’t say anything, and after a few minutes of awkward silence, Q gritted his teeth and asked again, “Is there something I can help you with?”

        “Not really,” Bond smiled, and Q had to fight back the desire to slap him silly. “Just thought I would check in on the progress of my exploding pen.”

        Q blinked, quickly schooling his face into polite bewilderment even as he cursed double-o agents and all of Bond’s ancestors. “How about the next of never? I told you, we don’t go for that sort of thing anymore.”

        “I saw you working on a batch a few weeks back.”

        Two options presented themselves to him: lying or asking how Bond knew of that. As it seemed fairly pointless to ask how Bond knew, given that the man had proven himself capable of gathering information by virtue of still being employed, he decided to go with the former. “I do believe you are mistaken, as I can assure you that I do not know what you are referring to.”

        Bond’s smile didn’t fade; if anything, it grew a little wider. “You’re a terrible liar, Q.”

        He couldn’t help but feel a little indignant at that slight. “That’s not true. I’m an excellent liar.” He’d learned from the best, after all. “In any case, you won’t be getting a pen of your very own until you bring back all of your equipment intact.”

        “Is that a challenge?”

        Q shrugged, “Think of it as an incentive.”

        “Surely you can do better than that?” Bond replied, the words teasing but not mocking. Q blinked, thrown not by what Bond was saying but _how_ , and as it processed he could feel himself flush which – given his normal complexion that often resulted in people mistaking him as an irritable poltergeist – was stupidly noticeable even in his badly lit office. And judging from the way 007’s grin seemed to elongate to Cheshire cat proportions, had indeed _been_ noticed.

        There were a number of ways he could now react. One involved faking his death, and another involved causing Bond’s death. The agent would never see it coming, since no one expected a skinny tech geek to have impeccable aim with a nail gun. M might have something to say about that though, even if Q tried to point out how much money they would be saving if 007 wasn’t around to blow up everything within view, so he settled for door number three: snark.

        “Perhaps I could,” he agreed, careful to keep his voice mild even as he fought to get rid of his damnable blush. “Especially given your track record, it seems unlikely you would ever have the opportunity to collect.”

        Bond was still smiling, and Q was starting to think that maybe he should be exploring option two more seriously. “That’s because I never had a proper incentive.”

        It was at this point that Q finally decided it would be a very, very good thing for Bond, himself, and the future of the world that 007 leave immediately before he set off a small nuclear explosion to spare himself of any further indignity. “You know where the door is, 007. Please make sure to close it on your way out.”

        To his mild surprise, Bond actually deigned to obey his direction, moving to stand even if that smug look continued to exist in exuberantly irritating quantities. But Bond wouldn’t be Bond if he didn’t get in the last word, which might explain why the agent felt compelled to stop at the door and ask, “If you don’t mind me asking-”

        “I do,” he immediately responded, which Bond in turn _immediately_ ignored by asking precisely what Q did not want him to ask.

        “Exactly what were you planning to do with a bunny farm?”

* * *

        “Well,” Moriarty said softly. “This is… different.”

        Sebastian Moran had not lasted as long as he had in his position by not displaying basic survival instincts, and each and every one of those instincts were screaming at him to stay silent. When his boss got in such a state, it was best to keep a low profile and if personally addressed, smile and nod and back away slowly.

        “At least it wasn’t another computer virus. Those were getting tiresome,” Moriarty continued, his fingers tapping an unhappy rhythm. The rabbit who had been sniffing at his fingers seemed to sense its immediate danger, and quickly hopped off the table to join its compatriots. “Although perhaps I was underestimating how determined baby brother was?”

        Sebastian knew better than to answer, even if the sentence was framed as a question. He watched as three brown rabbits scampered by. They had done their best to catch as many of the vermin as they could, but Richard had sent quite a… few. And for every one that escaped, three more were quickly bred to wreak havoc. There was no doubt that this particular hideout was not going to be of much use any longer, not unless they wanted to deal with rabbit shit all over the place. Then there was the matter of wires being chewed through, the carpet being dug into, and all of the bloody _hair_. Not a minute went by without someone sneezing, and even he was starting to feel like he was suffering from a permanent case of dandruff. And he was _bald_.

        Sebastian had never met the younger Moriarty, but he was rather looking forward now to teaching the brat a lesson.

        As if reading his mind, his boss turned to face him, a psychotic grin on his face. It was one he knew as well as Moriarty’s mercurial moods, but this time it made him smile in grim anticipation as Moriarty clapped his hands together.

        “Moran darling,” his boss said. “I do believe we have some work to do.”


	4. Counter-Offensive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“A strategic offensive taking place after an enemy’s front line troops and reserves have been exhausted, and before the enemy has had the opportunity to assume new defensive positions.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to pinkangelsakura, who valiantly handled my shrieky texts of _“Give me ideas NOW”_ without hitting me.

        It wasn’t that Q had not been prepared for retaliation. Q wouldn’t have survived his childhood if that was the case, although then he had been more worried about a pencil to the eye rather than booby traps in his own flat. But as used as he was to constant threats, it was simply _exhausting_ to be on high alert (because nothing less would do) 24/7, seven days a week, and it was even more so when he was trying to maintain the security of the country. Not to mention the tiny problem that all of the double-o agents seemed to have a sudden and very vicious vendetta against breathing without pain, requiring his constant attention to ensure that despite their best attempts otherwise, they made it home in one piece and preferably not in a body bag.

        (He almost wondered if Jim had a hand in this, but 007 wasn’t the only agent with a death wish; he was just the most vocal of them. Although oddly enough, Bond had been the least problematic as of late, which made Q suspicious that the man was one mission away from setting off an ice bomb that would cover the world in permafrost.)

        So really, it was less that Q had not been prepared and more that he was being forced to set aside his ongoing blood feud in order to focus on churning out life-saving gadgetry and preventing other Silva-wannabes from infesting his computer system with viruses. And while he thought this was a perfectly legitimate reason not to be watching his back during all of his waking hours (and most of his sleeping ones), it was certainly not one that was recognized by his brother.

* * *

        “You’re not planning on becoming an international supervillain, are you?”

        Q blinked. There was a time when Q naïvely thought he could no longer be surprised by anything, as growing up with a certified psychopath and exchanging his social life for quality time with men and women who could kill you with a paperclip should have immunized him to the wonders of the universe. Unfortunately, he had failed to take into consideration one James Bond, who was currently staring at him as if he had grown an extra head. And given that Bond was one of said men who could kill with a paperclip, this was very worrying indeed. “What?”

        “The hair,” Bond said. The agent was obviously trying very hard to keep his eyes on Q’s face, but his eyes kept drifting upwards to Q’s hairline. “It’s very….”

        Q’s heart plummeted into his stomach, making him feel rather like he had been tied to a Tilt-a-Whirl (something he was somewhat of an expert on, having been tied to one as a young child unfortunate enough to have a budding psychopath as an older brother). “Very _what_?!”

        In the span of three syllables, his voice had managed to rise three octaves. Now was not the time to be impressed by his failure to enter into puberty though, as Bond finally gave up any attempts at pretending not to stare and said, “Blond.”

        There was an audible crack as Q snapped the pen he was holding in half. He barely noticed when the ink ran down his fingers and all over the latest psychological survey he was being forced to fill out as he rasped out for the third time in thirty seconds, “ _What_.” Once upon a time, Q would have at least tried to inject some creativity into his horror, but that was before the word “blond” was used in conjunction with his _hair_.

        “You haven’t looked at yourself in the mirror today?” Bond asked, before he made the mistake of trying to soften the blow by adding lamely, “It doesn’t look too bad. Maybe that’s why no one commented on it, although with the stubble….”

        Q never heard the rest of that sentence as he practically flung himself out of his office like a crazed lemur determined to be the first one off the cliff. Various Q-branch members looked up and immediately blanched, quickly ducking their heads to focus desperately on their work as he ran past them to the nearest toilet. It was gloriously unoccupied, so no one was there to witness the strangled sound he emitted as he took in his bleach blond hair. Which, as Bond had pointed out, clashed rather emphatically with the dark stubble he had not bothered to take care of that morning, having more or less sleptwalk his way out of bed to the shower and to the street without once checking his appearance. It wasn’t anything unusual; there wasn’t much point _to_ checking his appearance when his wardrobe choices were so limited and running a brush through the tangled mess on his head was more likely to result in said brush getting eaten than any taming of his hair.

        And it looked like his brother had realized that too because there was no question in his mind who the perpetrator behind this was. Really, the only outstanding question remaining was how many armies he could send his brother’s way before the world powers caught onto his little side project. It would be worth life imprisonment or execution by paperclip to simply imagine the look on Jim’s face when the British, Americans, Russians, and Chinese stormed his front door.

        Unfortunately for his mental well-being, the only door being stormed at the moment was the one separating him from further humiliation. Even in his haste to confirm his worst fears, he had managed to lock the door, but that gesture was quickly proving futile. Obviously locks were things that only worked for _other_ people, which was why Bond was soon at his side, looking vaguely sympathetic.

        “You really didn’t know?” Bond asked, and Q gritted his teeth in response.

        “You think I would have shown my face here if I did?” he snapped, reaching an ink-stained hand up to grab a handful of hair. He would have yanked it out by the roots if Bond didn’t pry his hand away, and Q’s swirling rage quickly identified a new, far more convenient target. “What are you doing here anyway? Or did you need to get a better picture for blackmail purposes?”

        Bond ignored his death glare, which was actually quite impressive considering how that expression had sent many a psychiatrist into early retirement or PTSD-driven disability. “Who should I be killing?”

        Q blinked. Once Bond’s offer finally processed, it took every ounce of his self-control not to provide the agent with Jim’s new address (like those sixteen decoy locations were going to work). Of course he knew that as someone in a senior position, he really shouldn’t be encouraging murderous impulses, but when it was in the service of his sanity it was difficult not to be tempted. However, that temptation was severely tempered by the fact that he would have to _tell_ Bond who his target was. And as efficient as Bond was when it came to killing (the only thing he was better at was destroying his hard-made equipment), Jim was terribly good at surviving and would almost certainly survive long enough to tell the agent about the quartermaster’s twisted family relationships. That was something he didn’t want Bond or anyone else in the universe to know; it was bad enough that _he_ knew.

        Still, the offer calmed him, which again possibly spoke a great deal about his morality (or lack thereof). He was able to force a smile on his face, which he knew better resembled a grimace, but under the circumstances it was the best he could manage. “It’s… fine. Thank you, 007, but I believe it will be fine.”

        “You’re sure?” Bond asked, looking deadly serious and making Q’s mouth go dry. “Because I will, you know.”

        “I’ll be fine,” he said, and he couldn’t be bothered to make the lie sound remotely sincere. He knew Bond wouldn’t buy it but it didn’t matter; it wasn’t going to change anything. Because even more than his desire to end Jim’s life slowly and painfully, he simply couldn’t have Bond know who had done this and _who he was related to_ , and so he would swallow his pride and handle this on his own, for better or for worse (almost certainly worse). “I’m sure of it.”

* * *

        It was most decidedly _not fine_.

        Currently, Q was huddled in his parka, trying desperately to appear as small and unnoticeable as he possibly could. This was unfortunately complicated by the chip and pin machine raining down abuse at him, to the collective horror (and entertainment) of the other shoppers in the very, _very_ crowded store.

        “And that _cardigan_ ,” the machine berated him, having finished insulting his glasses, his shoes, his figure, and his common sense, the last of which he was willing to concede because if he had any sense he would have locked himself in his office until all of that horribly dyed hair had fallen out from stress. “You really expect anyone to take you seriously in that? Honestly, you might as well go to work dressed as a clown. At least then someone might accidentally tip you.”

        Q had no idea how Jim was doing this, although the part of his brain that had not been rendered comatose by a combination of hydrogen peroxide in his shampoo and utter humiliation noted sadly that he really shouldn’t be surprised. Jim, being a perceptive bastard on top of his many other character defects, would have known exactly how he would react, and act accordingly. He wouldn’t be surprised if every chip and pin machine within a half-mile radius of MI6 headquarters had suddenly gained the ability to curse up a storm when before they would have struggled to read a damned credit card.

        He gritted his teeth and tried to ignore both the machine and the titters in the background, shoving his attempted purchase at the scanner again. This did not have the desired effect, unless the desired effect was to cause the machine to start shrieking so loud that any birds flying overhead would drop out of the sky to die squishy, pavement-induced deaths.

        “ _Hair dye_?!” the machine roared. “Are you trying to make your hair fall out? Do you know how much damage multiple dyings will do to your hair? Honestly do you not think at all, or has that bleach eaten through your brain?!”

        As if one, the entire store immediately tuned to stare at his hair while he tried to burrow even deeper into himself, a difficult task given that he had spent the past five minutes trying to disappear. It didn’t work. Even the hat Tanner had given him – the Chief of Staff was the only person who hadn’t cracked a smile at his appearance, although he could have sworn that he had heard a shriek of decidedly un-Tanner like laughter a few seconds after the man had left the room – could not completely contain the various wisps of unruly hair that were even more determined to make a public appearance, now that it had a willing and able audience.

        He thrust the hair dye back at the scanner with a snarl; the last thing he needed was for a damned lecture, especially when he was well-aware of the risks already. Because frankly, he didn’t _care_ if it would make his hair fall out; he would rather spend the rest of his life being _bald_ than spend one moment more as a platinum blond _moron_.

        It seemed that he wasn’t being given a choice as the chip and pin machine snapped, “Oh no you don’t. Someone has to look out for you since you are clearly not up to the task! Now put that thing back where it came from, or so help me-”

        Q slammed a fist into the machine, and for one blissful, beautiful moment, there was silence. Even the employees, who had been standing on the sideline for all of this time, were too stunned by his reaction to challenge him.

        He was not, by nature, a violent person. For one thing, he preferred to use his brain, unlike certain muscly thugs he worked with. For another, despite his best efforts he still found himself being cooed over by the more maternal members of his department as that “poor, delicate thing,” no matter how often he threatened to have their paychecks halved if they persisted in their attempts to make him eat more red meat. The latter was probably why his punch did more to injure himself than the machine, but perhaps he had managed to knock a chip or wire loose that would put an end to his nightmare.

        That hope lasted approximately three seconds before it died a screaming, fiery death when the machine said, “Oh, do that _again_.”

        It was… less about what was being said but _how_. Whereas before the machine had been content to just screech at him like an unhappy parent, the voice now dropped three octaves and sounded almost….

        “No,” he said finally, in the hope that if he said it enough times, then maybe it would come true. “No, no, no, no, _no_.”

        “Yes,” the chip and pin machine told him in that low, husky voice that made him want to claw his ears off. “Your anger _turns me on_.”

        He immediately began to back away from the machine, his face frozen in an expression of pure terror. It was mirrored by the other patrons in the store, with the exception of one man who was looking slightly turned on and oh god, his brain immediately shut down in a game attempt at self-preservation.

        But not quite enough self-preservation, as he turned towards the nearest camera – because there was no way Jim wasn’t watching all of this, and Q hoped spitefully that his brother choked on his laughter – and mouthed, “ _I will kill you_.” This just caused the chip and pin machine to let out an obscene groan, which in turn resulted in mothers trying to cover the ears of their small, no longer innocent but likely scarred for life children (and good god, that one man was looking _even more turned on_ ). Unable to handle this hell any longer, Q turned to stare wildly at the nearest employee, pulling out some bills and practically flinging it into the poor girl’s face before fleeing the store as if all of hell’s demons were chasing after him. Which, given what he was leaving behind, was not a bad analogy at all.

        “Trouble with the chip and pin machine?”

        Q jerked, turning to stare at a short blond who was looking kind and sympathetic and altogether ordinary, and yet Q felt oddly wary of the man. Which was strange because while he was extremely paranoid (and for good reason), he had built up an immunity to “dangerous” people, as he spent most of his life surrounded by some of the most dangerous people in the country. He decided to attribute his wholly irrational feelings to a visceral reaction to anyone who remotely resembled Bond, but made an effort to arrange his face into something approaching empathy as the man continued, “Happens to me all the time. You get used to it, eventually.”

        Even outside, he could hear a mechanical voice serenading, and winced. If the damn thing was mobile, no doubt it would have been _twerking_ at this stage.

        “I doubt it,” he replied finally, wishing he could sound more appreciative but really, it was difficult to keep his voice on the right side of hysteria as it was. “I really, really doubt it.”

* * *

        At least his pessimism meant he got to be right about one thing.

        In part because the universe detested him but mostly because Jim Moriarty was his brother and a massive, _massive_ dick who had apparently decided his humiliation was not yet complete, things continued to rapidly go downhill from there. He really hadn’t thought it possible, considering how he had just been sexually propositioned by an _inanimate object_ , but he really should have learned better than to underestimate his brother’s ability to make his life a living hell. Jim never had been content with putting someone down; no, the bastard had to kick the shit out of the cooling corpse before he was content.

        This explained his current situation, as he stood frozen in front of the screen that should have been displaying slides from his presentation titled “A Short Guide to Not Getting Hacked by Agents Who are Supposed to be Dead” (not his idea, but M had given him a choice between that or training interns for two months as punishment for allowing Silva into their system) but was instead displaying—

        “Aw, who would have known Q was so cute as a child?” someone stage whispered, causing his audience of formerly very mature adults to break out into titters. No one even have the decency to pretend to suppress their laughter as an image of a young Q dressed as a pirate took the place of the previous image of a young Q jumping into a swimming pool (actually, he had been pushed by – who else? – his brother, which neatly explained the look of pure terror on his face).

        Q sent them all a withering look, which did not have the desired effect of turning everyone into stone. It did, however, reassure him that between the hair (which was finally the right color, if shedding at rather alarming rates) and this idiocy, he was _never_ going to be able to control his department again. He might as well turn in his letter of resignation now, except both M and Tanner were too busy shredding what little remained of his dignity to notice if he had folded said letter into a paper airplane and aimed it at their eyes.

        His attempts to stop the slideshow presentation of his most humiliating moments as a child – and of course Jim had made sure to choose pictures that were obviously him, although for the less observant members his brother had added sparkly text to each of the pictures loudly proclaiming, “Q at Age 9!”, “Q at Age 6!,” and “Q at Age 23!” (Jim had kindly “volunteered” him to be a fairy princess in a play that had lacked the requisite number of young ladies, and no amount of threatening could convince the production company not to put him in a pointy hat and wig), as was appropriate – had been for naught. He had immediately pulled the plug on his computer and the projector, attempted to cut off the power to the entire building, and had even set off the fire alarm. None of it had worked, although the last of those had _doubled_ the size of his audience.

        The worst thing about it was that he still wasn’t remotely surprised. Q might have been better at computers, but – despite his wretched record when it came to challenging his brother – he still had the unfortunate tendency to underestimate Jim’s tenacity and ability for creative sabotage. He would, of course, eventually be able to wipe all traces of the bastard from the system (and hopefully all of earth as well), but it wouldn’t _matter_ unless he went on a murder spree to eliminate all of the witnesses to his humiliation. Since he had a suspicion that taking out several departments of MI6 would be frowned upon, his only choice was to flee like a coward as whatever showed up next on screen drew the largest chorus of laughter yet.

        If Q ever crawled out from under his desk, it would _not_ be by choice.

        But before he could start engineering a robot to steal food, water, wet wipes, and air fresheners (he bloody well meant it when he said he was fully planning on hiding under his desk until either old age or termites claimed the tattered remains of his soul), he knew that even this self-imposed exile would not be enough to appease the wrath he had incurred. So, as he slammed the door to his office behind him and locked it securely – locks that even a certain super secret spy would not be able to get through or he would eat his own computer – he picked out his phone, took in a deep breath, and made the call he had dreaded making for quite some time now.

* * *

        James Moriarty was not a patient man. Sebastian had long ago lost track of the number of times employees had gone missing after missing a deadline, even if he had been responsible for a majority of those; suffice to say that the number was very high and continuing to rise.

        Richard Moriarty, however, was a stubborn man. The result was hours and hours of general twitchiness, during which people died and his boss’s mood soured, often resulting in more people dying. It was a vicious cycle.

        (Sebastian never complained about it. He never claimed to not enjoy the more hands-on aspect of the job, and it gave him something to do, as their work was not as exciting as some people imagined it to be.)

        Sebastian caught the first notes of Stayin’ Alive before it was drowned out by a cackle of joy. Moriarty never could be bothered to pretend he had not been waiting at the phone for this very moment, so neither lasted long as his boss quickly picked up the phone.

        “Richie!” Moriarty sang out. “How are you, brother dearest?”

        Even though Sebastian was the only one watching, Moriarty still made quite a show of nodding unsympathetically as Richard’s ranting got louder and louder. “Well,” Moriarty cut off finally, “that does sound like quite a problem. Unfortunately, I’m not sure what you expect me to do about it without your saying the magic words.”

        There was a shriek from the other end, which sounded vaguely like “ _you bloody bastard, Jim, I will cut you open and feed your intestines to a pack of weasels before I drown what is left of your body in a vat of-_ ”

        Moriarty tutted. “No, no, baby brother, I don’t think that’s quite how it works. And you might want to think fast, or that desk you are hiding under might have a few surprises of its own.”

        Richard’s next words were too soft to be heard, and Moriarty laughed. “No, I don’t have a camera in your office. I just know _you_. Honestly, I really can’t tell if you haven’t the heart for our little game or if you’ve become soft behind that title of yours.”

        Again, Sebastian couldn’t hear what Richard was saying, but he didn’t need to as after a few more minutes of nodding and humming, Moriarty finally mouthed, “ _He’s sorry_.” He doubted it; if the younger Moriarty was anything like the elder, the words might have been said but the sentiment was definitely not there. But everyone knew that it wasn’t the sincerity of the “apology” that mattered anyway; it was the humility that Moriarty wanted, and was obviously getting as his boss said a little too happily, “I do enjoy it when you grovel.”

        This was quickly followed by Moriarty holding the phone away from his ear. Even from the safety of being on the other side of the room, Sebastian could hear Richard’s stream of curses, increasingly creative and graphic in nature (he really _should_ be taking notes; some of those ideas could be useful in the future). Meanwhile, Moriarty just continued to smile, looking rather fond, and not for the first time Sebastian was very, very glad that he was an only child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, the work gods have decreed that there shall be a break next week, but should be back the following week. Thanks to everyone for your patience!


	5. Fabian Strategy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Wearing down an enemy by using attrition warfare and indirecton, while avoiding pitched battles or frontal assaults.”_

        In his ever mature and gracious way, Q blamed 007.

        Despite the prevailing belief that Q had the emotional capacity of an android that had been shot repeatedly in the head, and the admittedly substantial evidence to back that up, Q did not in fact want to spend the rest of his life as a spinster whose melting corpse would have to be scraped off his chair with a spatula. Thus, he was uncomfortably aware of his growing attraction to one James Bond, an attraction that was not in any way assisted by the agent’s inappropriate sexual advances.

        Of course, Q knew that it didn’t mean anything. Bond would proposition anything with a pulse and – again, despite those pesky rumors to the contrary – Q did fall into that category, with the extra bonuses of possessing all of his limbs and teeth.

        His growing attraction _also_ shouldn’t have meant anything because there were no discernable reasons for said attraction. Yes, the man was gorgeous, but so were a lot of the other double-o agents (it was practically a job requirement to make all the other mere mortals around them feel bad), some of whom actually knew how to apologize when they returned the pieces of his equipment. Bond couldn’t even be bothered to bring back the pieces and he certainly never apologized, unless snide remarks about how quickly his “unbreakable” weaponry had been broken under a runaway train ( _only Bond_ ) counted. Which they didn’t.

        Those snide remarks were just one of many reasons why he _shouldn’t_ have been attracted to the agent. Hell, under normal circumstances, his normal response to Bond’s smugness at destroying his toys would have been death threats, but Bond was the kind of person who made the word “normal” fling itself out of the nearest window. Besides, one could argue that Q demonstrated his affections _through_ death threats, except that would imply he had affection for his brother and that was not something he was willing to admit even under pain of death and psychiatric assistance.

        Still, whatever the reasons for his irrational fascination with 007, it didn’t matter. Q was practical and knew that no good would come of this flirtation; even if Bond miraculously became emotionally stable through the power of science or traumatic head injury, that didn’t mean the man would want to settle down with _him_. So rather than waste what little free time he had pining for that which he could not have, he dated.

        Or more precisely, he _tried_ to. It didn’t take him very long to realize that his prospects were very dim indeed.

        If he was to be honest with himself, he had known this was a likely possibility. He had never been very good at balancing his work and “social” life, to the point that the latter didn’t actually… exist. One didn’t become the youngest quartermaster in the history of MI6 without making some sacrifices, and his sacrifice seemed to be companionship of any sort, as he had even managed to murder his goldfish through neglect during the Silva debacle.

        His relationships had undergone similar fates, even though he had attempted to date exclusively within MI6. It had been his (childish) hope that doing so would make his partners more… understanding when the inevitable work emergencies tore him away from dinner, the cinema, meeting family and friends, and on one very memorable (but certainly not in a good way) occasion, sex. And while everyone was very kind about it, and the breakups amicable and polite, they were still breakups and the end result was the same.

        He wasn’t lonely. He didn’t need romantic entanglements to make his life whole. He had his work and he _loved_ it, truly he did, and he even loved it for reasons outside of abusing his position to make Jim’s life hell (although that helped too). But he didn’t _not_ want a relationship either, and sometimes he felt like a bloody pariah when surrounded by colleagues who knew how to have lives outside of work.

        (And if he wanted to distract himself from Bond as well, there was _absolutely nothing wrong with that_. Anyone who tried to tell him otherwise was likely to get a screwdriver permanently impaled in their eyeball, and it would _not_ be a sonic one.)

        His new position wasn’t quite helping. While he was extremely proud (read: smug) of his accomplishments, unlike previous quartermasters, he had not been clever enough to get married and have prenups drawn up _before_ his promotion. And now that he was quartermaster, he was not only less capable of achieving a practical work-life balance but in a position of authority over the vast majority of MI6. Needless to say, he had a feeling that the already microscopic pool of people crazy enough to go out with him had probably dwindled to a dry, pathetic spot on the pavement.

        Q liked to think that was why he was so taken aback the day someone voluntarily asked him out and, more to the point, why things turned out the way they did.

* * *

        He met Adrian at the National Gallery.

        Q had never been a great lover of art, but he’d always had an appreciation for the Gallery. It was no accident that he had chosen that spot to introduce himself to the agent; it permitted him to be in his element just as well as his office or lab, but with the added benefit that Bond couldn’t explode anything without getting in trouble with the authorities (not that any charges would stick, but the expression on the infamous 007’s face as he was hauled away by museum security would have been amusing).

        That day had not been a particularly good one, involving no less than six resets of the “Days Without a Workplace Injury” clock, two referrals of traumatized employees to medical, and no less than twenty-three prank calls, courtesy of his soon-to-be-expired older brother. By the time Bond had dropped by his office with the mangled remains of what had once upon a time been a gorgeous and excruciatingly expensive prototype industrial laser, Q had been at the end of his rope. As soon as Bond was out of sight, he had fled for the Gallery even though it required missing an upper management meeting with the psych department. He didn’t care if it was mandatory; if he had to go to that meeting, MI6 and a good part of London would be a smoking crater before the end of the day.

        Luckily for everyone within a five-mile radius of London, there were not too many tourists, and it was easy for Q to make his way to his favorite Turner (one that did not involve any bloody big ships). He spent far too much time there, losing himself to the soothing blend of colors as he calmed down from whatever was eating away at him that day. He had always suspected that he looked odd, spending that much time in front of a painting without any sketchbook of paints of his own, but he didn’t care. This was his place outside of work and his flat, a time for him not to worry about appeasing the powers that be or irritating agents with far too many demands and little respect for his efforts. And Bond’s smugness hadn’t helped in the slightest, as if the bastard _knew_ that Q couldn’t stay mad at him for too long because Q was hopeless and had zero self-control when it came to charming smiles and blue eyes and-

        “Hello.”

        That was how Adrian Riley had introduced himself. It was so simple, so _normal_ , that Q had been caught completely off-guard. He was so used to the double-speak of spies, the politics of bureaucracy, and the unadulterated insanity of his brother that he hadn’t known how to process something as straightforward as an everyday greeting, let alone how to respond. Apparently though, his bewildered look was endearing to a small subset of crazy people, of which Adrian was very much a part of.

        Q didn’t remember much of the conversation that followed, too distracted by competing sensations: his heart jumping into his throat and his hand reaching for his concealed weapon. Somehow he found himself not passing out or getting arrested for murder, but instead ended up hesitantly accepting an invitation to dinner and the cinema, the combination of which sounded conspicuously like a date.

        He still wasn’t sure why he had accepted. But as his heart had tried to break free from his rib cage, he knew it was beating a little too quickly to be medically sound. And it hadn’t helped that his common sense was shot (that’s what happened when you worked for a not-so-secret organization and was fatally attracted to a person with the emotional inclinations of a hyperactive peacock), although not so shot that he didn’t run several extensive and not entirely legal background checks on Mr. Adrian Riley. Within an hour, he knew the man’s employment and educational history, his credit score, all purchases made in the past two years, and most importantly, whether the man had any connection to terrorist organizations or worse, his _brother_. When he still couldn’t find anything, he checked again, and then once more because it wasn’t possible for a normal person to have any interest in him. There had to be a _reason_ , and since he was the MI6 quartermaster _and_ a Moriarty, that reason couldn’t have anything to do with his own virtues, of which there were not many unless a fondness for corrosive acids was an attractive quality to have these days.

        It had taken everything in him not to just flat out ask Adrian that during their next few dates, an accomplishment based less on self-control and more on not wanting to appear even more like a psychopath than he already did. He instead distracted himself by trying to pinpoint what attracted him to the man. After all, Q liked to think that he was a logical person, unswayed by animalistic chemistry or something equally nonsensical like that. And yet when he was with Adrian, he sometimes found it very difficult not to just grin like an idiot even as he sternly tried to tell himself to be sensible.

        But maybe that normalcy was exactly the point. He hadn’t realized it before because even before MI6, he had been so surrounded by crazy that he had accepted it as standard. It wasn’t until he got to hear about how normal people went about their lives, going to their normal jobs and handling their normal concerns, that he realized exactly how _ab_ normal he was.

        Jim would have a lot to say about normalcy, starting with “boring” to things that were unrepeatable, but that was Jim, and Q was most certainly _not_ Jim. There were times that Q felt like an anomaly even in MI6, which was not exactly made up by the most ordinary of persons to begin with. The appeal of someone who could let him forget those things for just a second, to allow him to let his guard down because for once not everything was about the next project or the next mission or the next target… it mattered in a way he could not quite understand but had to appreciate. Simply put, Adrian let him feel like he could be something more than just the position he occupied. He made him feel important simply for being himself.

        (And if it helped him forget Bond and the agent’s special ability to enrage and enrapture him both at the same time… well. He wasn’t going to be complaining about that.)

* * *

        Of course, the universe had a tendency of going out of its way to let him know exactly how it felt about his disturbing the cosmic order. And since the universe contained both James Bond _and_ Jim Moriarty, it had some very obnoxious mouthpieces by which to make its opinion known.

        “Who was that?” 007 asked one day. The question would probably have been better received if a) it was not occurring in Q’s living room, b) it was not occurring at two in the morning, c) Bond had not just attempted to _break into_ Q’s flat at two in the morning, d) Q had not been forced to rush out of bed to deal with said intrusion, which e) had resulted in Q facing off with an impeccably dressed agent while he wore nothing but a pair of underpants.

        But maybe that was just him.

        His hand tightened slowly around the taser he had grabbed instead of clothing. It was a lovely thing, capable of frying even the most stubborn of agents or your money back guaranteed, and his fingers itched to pull the trigger. The stench of burned flesh might finally result in his getting evicted, but good lord it would be worth it. (He wasn’t the least bit worried about what M would say; he’d heard from Moneypenny that Mallory had taken quite a few shots at the agent the last time Bond had decided to invite himself over and drink all of the good brandy.)

        “What… this… this is my _home_ , 007,” he spluttered finally, as if that would actually _mean_ something to a certain bastard who had absolutely zero respect for personal boundaries. As expected, it did not.

        “That wasn’t my question,” Bond replied with a single-mindedness that was impressive when it wasn’t being used against him. Which meant that it was very rarely impressive, and more likely to send him careening off a tall building in a pure rage-induced insanity. The agent looked around the flat as if expecting for someone to jump out from under the cushions, eliciting from Q a sound that came dangerously close to an affronted squawk at the blatant invasion of his privacy. “That person coming from your flat an hour ago. Who was he?”

        Q was starting to seriously wonder if someone had slipped him some potent hallucinogens because this _could not be happening_. He crossed his arms over his bare chest, trying to channel his righteous indignation into something productive like controlling that full-body blush that was the result of standing, disheveled and half-naked, before a man he was (still) uncomfortably attracted to even as he choked out, “Are you… are you _stalking_ me?”

        “Yes,” Bond immediately answered. But before Q could even consider deluding himself into thinking that this was the equivalent of a declaration of love, the agent continued, “I keep an eye on all of the department heads. It helps pass the time between missions, maintains my skills, and reduces the chance of an untimely kidnapping. Although speaking of kidnapping, you really should keep a better eye on your surroundings. On your night out, I counted at least sixteen times you were vulnerable to-”

        “Have you ever considered getting a life?” Q asked, completely aghast. He had never really thought about it, how while all of the other agents had the decency to spend their time between missions _away_ from MI6, you couldn’t turn the corner without bumping into 007 on the best of days. If anything, he had just assumed that Bond took a perverse pleasure from making the staff squeak in horror at his sudden appearance. “Honestly, 007. Can’t you just… shut it off when you’re not on mission?”

        Even as he asked, he knew he was being a filthy, filthy hypocrite. Bond seemed to agree, if those raised eyebrows were anything to go by. “You worked three consecutive ninety-hour weeks two months back, and slept in your office more often than you did in your own flat.”

        “That’s not the point.” His protest sounded weak, even to himself. He remembered that month, although he had spent a significant proportion of it in an exhaustion-induced daze. More than once he hadn’t even remembered falling asleep, but had simply woken up on the sofa in his office with a blanket pulled over him. It had been a while since that had happened, if only because nobody since Major Boothroyd would have risked carrying him from the lab or his desk to said sofa. He had developed a bit of a reputation for hitting people when his sleep was interrupted, which he thought was justified given that he needed all the sleep he could get. But then that raised the question of who was-

        “You’re right, it’s not,” Bond agreed, forcing Q back to reality and all of the fresh hells the universe wished to inflict upon him this time. “We were talking about your mysterious guest before you changed the topic.”

        Not for the first (and certainly not for the last) time, he cursed all of his past lives because one of them must have done something truly appalling for this to _keep happening to him_. He must have massacred a few villages and invented the karaoke machine because otherwise, this kind of cruelty was simply undeserved. “I… I really don’t see how that is any of your business.”

        And perfect, now he was back to the spluttering, although his violent tendencies were quickly starting to come to a head; for that Cheshire cat smirk alone, Bond definitely deserved a taser to the _throat_. Said violent tendencies were not in any way calmed by Bond saying, “Didn’t M tell you that your private life becomes everyone’s business at MI6?”

        “No, I’m pretty sure they didn’t cover that during orientation,” he snapped. The words were harsher than he had intended, but right now Bond’s attempts at charm were more infuriating than amusing. It wasn’t fair; he had been feeling quite good after the date, had felt attractive in a way that was a little pathetic. But he genuinely liked Adrian, liked the way the man made him feel, and yet all Bond had to do was show up and suddenly he felt like he had to… had to what, defend himself? He had nothing to feel defensive about. He certainly owed Bond no explanation, and Bond had no right to demand one of him. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I would like to go back to bed like a normal human being.”

        For someone who was supposed to be extremely observant of human behavior, Bond seemed bizarrely incapable of taking the hint, despite it being one step removed from being bordered with blinking holiday lights and dancing elves. “You still haven’t-”

        “And I don’t plan to,” he cut off sharply, gesturing meaningfully at the door with the taser. It wasn’t subtle, but apparently subtle wasn’t going to work with Bond anyway. It was starting to seem like the agent only responded to violent threats.

        Or perhaps not, as Bond continued to court bodily harm by saying, “He could be a terrorist.”

        It took a spectacular demonstration of self-control not to press his finger down on the trigger. “Are you implying that the only reason why someone would want to date me is because they’re a terrorist? That is not very flattering, 007.”

        By this point, even Bond could no longer ignore the increasing likelihood of explosions in the near future. The agent quickly held his hands up and said, “I’m just saying that you should be careful.”

        Rather than accept Bond’s feeble attempts at backtracking, Q just felt more enraged at 007’s… _patronizing_ behavior. He knew it didn’t mean anything. He knew _he_ didn’t mean anything to Bond, except as a supplier of shiny toys and occasional amusement. But suddenly he felt winded, like he had been punched in the gut, and he hated how even now, even after he had proven himself so many times ago, the agent could still make him feel like a bloody _child_. Because despite Bond’s claims that he stalked everyone, he doubted that Bond would be having this conversation with Moneypenny or Tanner or _anyone else_ , but he tried to hold back his dismay as he bit back, “Appearances aside, I wasn’t actually born yesterday. I know how to run a background check.”

        And still, Bond managed to make it worse by saying, “Love can make people do stupid things.”

        “Yes, you would know something about that, wouldn’t you?”

        Because let it not be said that Bond was the only one who didn’t know how to keep his mouth _shut_.

        It was such a low blow, as anyone who had read Bond’s file could have told him. And he had read it, more times than was probably healthy, but for once in his life, he was not going to let sentiment stop him. And he certainly didn’t feel the least bit guilty as Bond’s expression darkened ever so slightly as the agent said in clipped tones, “Well, it seems that you have things under control. My apologies for intruding.”

        There was that part of him again, wanting to apologize for something that he hadn’t started. Except (and the fact that he had to tell himself this repeatedly was extremely problematic) this _wasn’t_ his fault. Bond shouldn’t have been here in the first place, questioning his abilities and making him feel like an absolute idiot, and he would be damned if he was made to feel guilty over… what, Bond’s hurt feelings? It was absolutely ridiculous given that he had wanted no part in this conversation, and so he forced himself to look Bond right in the eyes and say, “Make sure you lock the door on your way out, agent.”

        Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked back into the bedroom, slamming the door shut.

* * *

        Of course, the universe couldn’t be content with his making a right fool out of himself in front of James Bond, and so much to his non-surprise but plenty of dismay, his brother called that very day. He supposed he should have been grateful Jim didn’t call before Bond had exited his flat, but he was too busy raging against the universe to appreciate those moral victories.

        “He’s not your type,” Jim said, without bothering with the usual pleasantries such as ‘hello’ and ‘how are you’ and ‘have you ever considered the virtues of a nose ring?’ (that time, it had been Jim who had done a little too much drinking).

        For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, he was forced to demand, “Are you _spying_ on me, arsehole?”

        Q wasn’t sure why he was bothering to ask. It was like asking Bond all over again, except with a smaller chance of getting an answer that would not make him want to stab things. “Of course I am, baby brother. I am genetically obligated to spy on you and humiliate you every time you try to get laid.”

        “I _hate_ you,” he replied passionately.

        “I only ask because I care about you,” Jim protested, in a manner that strongly suggested the opposite of whatever he was saying. “But I really _must_ object to your taste in men, Richie. Must you be so pedestrian? He’s just so… so ordinary.”

        Only Jim knew how to make “ordinary” sound like a severe character flaw, right up there with misanthropy and an admiration for the Kardashians. He wasn’t sure why he was being forced to explain himself _again_ , given that being romantically involved with someone was not a crime punishable by pure mortification the last time he had checked, but he managed to grit out, “That’s what I like about him.”

        Jim sighed, just as Q knew he would. After all, Jim thought of normalcy as something boring people did in order to justify Jim killing them for being boring (his brother had always been a fan of circular logic). It was why his work at MI6 was so befuddling; Jim simply couldn’t understand why Q would try to protect people who simply weren’t interesting enough to care about whether they lived or died. “Oh Richie, Richie, _Richie_. You really do have a lot to learn about people, don’t you?”

        “I’m not sure you’re one to talk.”

        “You’d be surprised.” At Q’s soft huff of disgust, his brother continued in that lecturing tone Q hated with fiery passion, “Look, just because I don’t waste my energy on this caring lark doesn’t mean that I don’t _know_ people. You people always seem to put such stock on caring, but really, when has that ever accomplished anything but get a person killed faster?”

        “Is that what you plan on doing?” he demanded, careful to keep his voice neutral. It was best to sound dispassionate about this sort of thing, even if Jim was ridiculously good at cutting through the bullshit, but it was very difficult as he continued, “Because I warn you, Jim, if you even think about-”

        “Oh, will you _relax_ already.” Q could practically hear the eye roll on the other end. One almost had to admire the way Jim managed to make _him_ feel like the unreasonable one, which was really quite an accomplishment considering who the certified sociopath of the family was (he had the paperwork to prove it, although admittedly his psychological profile was nothing to write home about either). Q was not in an admiring mood though, and he was about to tell his brother exactly what orifice he could shove his ‘relaxing’ into when Jim said, “I’m not going to do anything.”

        He blinked. Under normal circumstances, this would be the point where he immediately duck for cover, as it probably meant that there was a missile or poisoned dart heading his way. But now… this was not unusual. Putting aside his annoying prattling, Jim tended to stay out of Q’s (futile) attempts at relationships. It had always struck him as strange, but he knew better than to ask his brother for an explanation lest he accidentally give off the impression that he _wanted_ Jim to interfere even more with Q’s life.

        He’d had plenty of time to concoct a number of theories for this, ranging from Jim being so emotionally fucked up that he couldn’t recognize a relationship to begin with to Jim wanting him to be happy (no one ever said they were _good_ theories). But the most likely explanation was that Jim knew that he didn’t have to do anything because sooner or later, and it was usually sooner, Q would mess things up. Hell, sometimes he wondered if maybe his brother just never had the opportunity to sabotage his relationship because they never lasted long enough _for_ Jim to get involved.

        A wave of irritation swept through him. Again, contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t wanted his other relationships to work out. He had, he really had, and this one in particular had felt different from the very start. But in a perverse way, Jim’s apparent lack of interest in screwing up  his life only highlighted his fears that his irrational attraction towards Adrian was just that: irrational. It was completely nonsensical; whereas Bond’s demands had made him protective of what he (thought) he had, Jim’s indifference highlighted all of his doubts. It was completely unfair how he knew precisely what his brother was trying to do, and yet the arse was still so capable of manipulating him.

        In a futile attempt to deny that truth, he said, “I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work.”

        “Isn’t it?” Jim drawled.

        “No. No, it’s not,” he said, and his denial said more than any admittance ever could.

        And as always, his brother knew him far too well. “Are you quite certain that I’m the one you’re trying to convince?”

        Before Q could even think of a proper retort to that, Jim hung up on him. It was hard to resent him for that though, since Q wasn’t sure he would ever be able to come up with anything at all.

* * *

        In the end, he didn’t need to come up with a response. Although that meant that he didn’t really have anything to say when his brother showed up at his flat to gloat.

        “You can’t hide in there forever!” Jim yelled through the door, probably amassing a good-sized audience in the process. There was something to be said about living in an abandoned warehouse: no nosy neighbors to witness his being lectured by a man who lacked morals and general human decency. “Oh come on, it’s not like this is the first time you’ve been dumped. There’s no need for such melodrama.”

        Trust Jim to put a grand perspective on all of this. And it wasn’t even like he was hiding or anything because that would be ridiculous; as Jim had pointed out, this wasn’t the first time and it probably wouldn’t be the last, and it hadn’t even been that _long_. They had been going out for a month, and apparently he was the only one who had thought there was something more going on. That was a first; all of those previous times, he had known what the problem was (himself), and he couldn’t really object given his behavior. But that wasn’t the case this time. The criminal underworld had been quiet and he had done his best to not let work get in the way, only canceling once. Of course, it was still probably him but he didn’t think he had done anything wrong this time, and yet….

        It didn’t matter. He knew it shouldn’t have mattered nearly as much as it did, but that hadn’t stopped him. Although he really had to take issue with Jim’s labeling his behavior as “hiding”; if he didn’t open the door, it was just because Jim would likely do something that would make him want to put the bastard’s head through a wall. Which was not to suggest that he had a problem with causing his brother bodily harm, but he also didn’t want to get arrested. Jim would never let him forget it if _that_ happened.

        He winced as the pounding on the door got louder. He was a little surprised that Jim didn’t just break in (like the slimy git didn’t have a copy of his key and countermeasures for all of his security protocols), and even more surprised when his brother offered, “I brought alcohol.”

        Great. Now all his neighbors were probably going to think he was an alcoholic too. Still, this was probably the best offer he was going to get, and considering how it was inevitable that Jim would get in, he might as well take it.

        Of course, that didn’t mean he had to be amiable as he did so, and before he had even pulled the door open all the way, he demanded, “Did you know?”

        At least Jim was decent enough not to lie as he pushed past. “I always know, baby brother. The only question is why you didn’t.”

        Q sighed. It wasn’t like he hadn’t asked himself that same exact question already, and he had a feeling that only social conventions had kept anyone else from asking. Jim didn’t much care for social conventions though, and as an interfering older brother he wouldn’t have been bound by them anyway.

        It had been easy, at the time, to overlook all of the warning sides. To convince himself, in spectacular fashion, that any concerns he had were being overblown. Q was logical, but in this instance, he had used all of that logic to explain away the simple gut feeling that he was getting too deeply involved for no good reason, and so it was even harder now to understand where things had gone wrong.

        “What does it matter?” he muttered, trying and mostly failing to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “It’s over and done with.”

        Jim laughed, flopping himself onto the sofa. But his words were deadly serious as he asked, “You want me to have him killed?”

        Q decided to blame emotional vulnerability on how touched he felt by the offer, even though he knew Jim was probably going to use it as a hands-on test for henchmen applicants. He also decided to blame emotional vulnerability on how tempted he was to accept (again, there was a reason why his own psychological profile had been deemed “worrisome” by the psych department), and it was only because he already had practice resisting other similar offers (including ones by Moneypenny and Tanner) that he was able to take the proffered bottle and say, “I thought I would take the high road this time.”

        “Ah,” Jim clinked the two bottles together. “Ruined his credit score, I take it?”

        “Absolutely devastated.”

        “Nice one,” Jim complimented, and Q wondered how much of a problem it was that they got along best when enjoying the misery of others. He decided to justify it on the grounds that in this case, the misery had been deserved. “What about that phone hack you sent me two months back, the one that rerouted my GPS to the nearest detention or mental health facility?”

        Q took a deep swig from his bottle, the kind of swallow that would normally lead to the polite proffering of brochures for Alcoholics Anonymous. “Already done that too.”

        His brother grinned and said fondly, “It’s times like this that I can almost believe we’re related.”

        “Sad but true,” Q replied with a roll of the eyes, but he couldn’t help but smile slightly. He quickly covered for it by taking another deep drink, and Jim pretended not to see it.

        For a moment, they lapsed into a companionable silence. It wasn’t often that they were like this, since their meetings tended to involve a lot of sniping (both of the verbal and lethal type) and repressed childhood issues, but it was that rarity that made these moments matter so much more. It never lasted long because said issues went far beyond mere sibling rivalry, and Jim in particularly wasn’t very good with silence, always liking to be in the center of attention. As was aptly demonstrated by Jim’s, “You know, I would be totally justified if I said ‘I told you so’ right now.”

        He nodded thoughtfully. “You would. I wouldn’t highly recommend it though.”

        “Fair enough.” Jim leaned back, and after a while, Q joined him on the sofa. He said nothing as he sat down, but neither did his brother even as he found himself leaning a little closer than was strictly beneficial to his health. And when an arm was thrown lazily over his shoulder in what would have been a comforting gesture if it had been anyone else in the world, he made no comment as Jim said, “You were always too good for him anyway, Richie.”

        It was as close to a compliment as he would ever get, which was precisely why he didn’t respond. After a time, Jim picked up the remote and turned on the television. They flipped through the channels, finally settling on a show about a 1950s current affairs news program. They even managed to make it through fifteen minutes of quiet drinking and watching when Jim had to ruin the moment by saying, “I know a lovely dominatrix I can put you in touch with. I know breasts aren’t your thing, but you would not _believe_ the things she can do with a riding crop-”

        “ _No_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adrian is named in honor of the life-size, life-weight dummy representing one unlucky passenger in the Cabin Pressure episode “Ipswich.” Because anyone who gets involved with the Moriartys is by definition, unlucky.
> 
> Had a lot of problems with this chapter (and I’m sure it shows), although I’m not entirely sure why. There were a lot of rewrites and dumping of scenes, and a serious consideration of whether I should just skip this chapter entirely. I didn’t, if only because there were still things I wanted to explore in this chapter that wouldn’t fit in anywhere else. Ironically, one of the things I wanted to explore ended up getting cut from the chapter because I just didn’t have the time to make it work, but I posted the draft of the scene to my tumblr if anyone wants to risk reading it.
> 
> But still, many apologies for the delay with this chapter! Unfortunately there will be a delay with the next chapter as well, so I just find myself apologizing all over again….


	6. Coercion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Compelling an enemy to involuntarily behave in a certain way by targeting the leadership, national communications, or political-economic centers.”_

        “Isn’t this lovely?”

        Q gave Jim a look that could only be described as a “stink-eye.” It was dutifully ignored as Jim took a delicate sip of tea, before beaming magnanimously. “I think this is lovely. I think mummy and daddy would be so proud to see us getting along so _well_. I think-”

        “I am here under extreme protest,” Q reminded him irritably.

        “That’s what the handcuffs are for.”

* * *

        It started with an invitation.

        Q handled the envelope as he did most things he received his brother: with gloves and goggles and one foot out the door, ready to flee for the nearest exit. It wouldn’t be the first time his brother sent him anthrax or on one particularly lively occasion, a poisonous viper that had forced Q to clamber onto the kitchen counter before he had finally managed to throw a pot over it, and Q knew better than to take any chances. One didn’t get very many chances when it came to Jim’s antics, and Q preferred not to wake up tied to a hospital bed, surrounded by psychiatrists asking him to explain his most recent psychotic break.

        Even after nothing exploded, poisoned, or jumped for his throat, Q knew better than to let out a sigh of relief. His instincts were rewarded when he pulled the paper free and examined the invitation. It was a standard affair, containing a time, location, and various threats of bodily harm if he did not comply.

        Q promptly chucked the paper into a blender that he kept for that exact purpose, turned it on, and went to bed.

* * *

        In Q’s experience, ignoring a problem rarely worked. Fires were unlikely to spontaneously go out on their own, budget deficits were unlikely to be solved by unexpected discoveries of pirate loot, agents were unlikely to start bringing back their equipment in working condition, and terrorists were unlikely to give up their pursuits in order to take up a calming lifestyle of rock gardening. However, when the problem was named James Moriarty, paying it no heed could be a surprisingly successful strategy. Jim had a notoriously short attention span, after all, and was easily distracted by shiny objects and people he could kill without resulting in a not-so-secret secret agency in hot pursuit. Thus, if Q chose not to engage – or escalate, as was his preferred route because nobody ever claimed that Q had any common sense – Jim more often than not lost interest and left Q in peace.

        This was not one of those times.

        It didn’t take very long at all before Q realized how serious his brother was. Jim, as was his habit, had lied about causing bodily harm, but considering the lengths Jim was going to, Q was starting to think he would have preferred a few of his kneecaps being shattered.

        First came the emptying of his bank accounts. Granted, they weren’t the important ones (at any time, Q had no less than seventeen accounts, in part because of Jim and in part because he needed to be ready to run if his tenure at MI6 ever came to an early and violent end), but it was still embarrassing to be told that he couldn’t buy his hair dye because he lacked sufficient funds.

        Next came the eviction notices. Not only had Q’s rent checks bounced due to the emptying of his bank accounts, but Jim had apparently taken some liberties in informing the landlord of Q’s bad habits. And yes, while it was technically true that he kept some toxic chemicals in his flat, occasionally had people try to murder him in the hallways, and was the one who set fire to the dumpster, there was no reason for an overreaction. It wasn’t like he was the _only_ one (Moneypenny had once taken out six assassins with a stiletto, and he didn’t see anyone complaining about that), but his landlord would hear none of it. He had been forced to dip into his emergency funds to find a new place, although in his spite he had left behind the toxic substances for his landlord to clean out.

        He had barely finished moving into his new flat when his workplace was invaded by government inspectors, there on an “anonymous tip” that Q-branch was violating child labor laws by employing a tween as their department head. After Q had finally managed to convince them that he was in fact of age, and no he had not forged his official documents, there had been a department-wide manhunt to ensure that he was not hiding child slaves in the cabinets. It didn’t help that a number of employees had printed out the more humiliating pictures from the slide show he had accidentally presented during his “A Short Guide to Not Getting Hacked by Agents Who are Supposed to be Dead” lecture (he had personally burned any pictures he came across, but they popped up more quickly than he could buy matches, blowtorches, and flamethrowers), further convincing the inspectors that there was a child being held captive. M had finally been forced to intervene, but not before loudly berating Q in front of his staff (granted, said berating had not been very effective since M was too busy laughing throughout).

        And no sooner had the government inspectors left did the delivery men arrive, bringing with them blow-up sex dolls. Q knew exactly how his brother had funded this little extravagance (Jim was kind enough to send the receipts, which were exactly equal to the amount the bastard had stolen from him, plus shipping and handling costs), which was enraging in and of itself. But then the dolls had to be delivered at the exact moment 007 had returned from an unexpected three-week mission to India.

        Q still wasn’t sure if 007 got the mission because of circumstance or because the agent had asked for it. He didn’t ask. Although that might have been more to do with the fact that he was trying to commit ritual seppuku when Bond walked into his office to find it filled with sex dolls. It was the first time they had seen each other since their… conversation at Q’s flat, and it was the absolute last thing Q wanted Bond to see. To say he was absolutely mortified was a vast understatement, and quite impressive given that Bond had already seen him with bleach blond hair and all of his baby pictures.

        Bond didn’t say anything. He just gave Q a long look before turning to walk away. Q was not sure if he should be grateful or despairing, and he settled for slamming his head against his desk a few times as he tried to make the world go away.

        The world did not. It continued to exist, and Q was a masochist who helped it do so even though a few targeted nuclear strikes sounded very lovely at the moment. And because the world continued to exist, Jim continued to send him unhelpful messages as the invitation date got closer and closer. By the time the chip-and-pin machines started lecturing him very loudly about familial responsibilities, Q was about half a second from locking himself in the cupboard of his lab that he used for storing poison darts (less for attacking, more for injecting himself if Jim came anywhere near his vicinity). But since he lacked those basic self-preservation instincts, he instead found himself one night in a dark alley, one hand tightly gripping the collar of a shirt and the other holding a gun to his pursuer’s neck.

        “Give me one good reason not to shoot you,” he snarled, jamming the gun a little more forcefully than was strictly necessary. But given his rather irritating life as of late, he thought his snappishness was justified. Besides, better to be snappy than trigger-happy, although he was getting closer to being both as he said, “I assume my brother sent you? You seem like his type. Thuggish, but with good instincts. And good at following orders, even with the threats to your bodily harm.”

        The man snorted, unimpressed. Q was used to that though; his brother’s men always underestimated him, due to his scrawny appearance. That made it all the sweeter when he put a bullet through their arm, which was the equivalent of putting a bullet through their brain because Jim had little interest in paying disability benefits. It was much more cost-effective to shoot someone and seek a replacement.

        “I know how to take the initiative as well,” was the cool reply. It wasn’t an open threat, but the implication was there. Extraordinary. Although he knew that he didn’t have the appearance of someone good at intimidation, having a gun pressed to one’s throat usually did the trick. It wasn’t like he had never followed through, although he generally preferred not to. The clean-up was a bitch to deal with, even if he could truthfully claim that the corpse was a wanted terrorist who was threatening him. “I’ve always wanted to meet you, Richard. I have heard so much about you.”

        “Charmed,” he said insincerely, readjusting his grip so it could be a bit more strangle-y. Q really didn’t like where this conversation was going. The man seemed distinctly unconcerned, in a way that suggested he was being humored. And even though Q had a good grip and a weapon, he was also very aware that this man was a killer, and one who was unafraid to use his self-given license to kill. He hid his discomfort though, continuing lightly, “I can’t say the same about you, Mister…?”

        “Moran. Sebastian Moran.”

        It was a bit harder to hide his surprise at that little piece of information. He’d heard of Moran, of course, and of the man’s stupidly high body count. More importantly, Moran was someone who had worked for his brother for years, quite a feat considering how quickly Jim tired of most everyone. That either meant Moran was very good at what he did or too unpredictable to become boring or worse, both. He kept this all to himself though. “I’m surprised my brother would send you, Mr. Moran. This seems quite beneath your station.”

        “I volunteered.”

        “Did you now?” Perhaps it would be a good idea to shoot now and not have to ever ask questions. Moran’s reputation preceded him, and Q was starting to wonder if perhaps Jim really was planning on making good on his threats of bodily harm. Q didn’t relish the idea of having his anatomy deconstructed, as was this man’s specialty, and all of his instincts were screaming at him to attack while he still had the chance.

        But speaking of chances, he knew he had to give Moran a chance to walk away. Maybe it was because he didn’t think Jim would take the killing of his right-hand man lightly, or maybe it was because Q still wasn’t very good at up-close killing, but instead of doing the safe thing he said grimly, “You probably already know that I have good aim, especially at close range, and more to the point I don’t take kindly to my brother’s men following me. If you would be so kind to pass along the message, you might get away with only a slight limp.”

        The grin he received in return was large and rather toothy. “You can tell him yourself.”

        It couldn’t be said that Q hadn’t _learned_. He had gone through the required MI6 self-defense classes, and badgered Moneypenny into giving him lessons on the side, so he wasn’t completely helpless without a weapon. But there was something to be said about having twice as much weight, three times as much muscle, and one hundred percent less qualms in using both.

        There was also something to be said about not using his common sense to shoot when he had the chance, but he didn’t have time to worry about that now that he was the one being pressed against a wall by a dangerous killer, his gun too far to be of any use. “This is a bit compromising.”

        “You should have taken the shot when you had the chance,” Moran replied, about as sympathetically as his brother. Which was to say, not very.

        “Yes, well, rest assured I won’t be making that mistake next time,” he snapped, before wincing at a sudden sharp pain. Moran’s grin quite resembled a shark now, and he looked down to see a needle in his leg. “Fu-”

        The curse died on his lips as he immediately felt woozy and his legs gave out, so that he was held up only by a bald psychopath. Moran’s chuckling made him want to hit the man, but he was barely capable of keeping his eyes open, vaguely noticing that the man stopped to pick up his weapon before helping him back to the streets. Occasionally he heard Moran give his excuses ( _too much to drink, you see how much of a lightweight he is_ ), but he was too busy staring at the CCTV cameras that he could have sworn were turning to watch their progress. But then he was being bundled into the waiting vehicle, and everything went dark before the car even started.

* * *

        “This is your own fault,” Jim said, pouring himself some more tea. “You should have just picked up when I called to confirm your RSVP.”

        “It is possible,” he replied, trying to sound calm and casual and utterly failing because all he wanted to do was _rip Jim’s head off with his teeth_ , “to leave a message. That is what most civilized people would do.”

        “You are clearly mistaken if you think us civilized. More tea?”

        Q honored him with a baleful look. It was an expression that caused most of Q-branch to stammer apologies and promise to be less stupid in the future, but Jim was not most of Q-branch and was too used to being the cause of such looks to care. “I haven’t had the opportunity to drink any yet, seeing how you still haven’t unlocked the handcuffs.”

        “That would be a problem. I can pour you a fresh cup, brother dearest,” Jim offered generously.

        “Will you hold the cup for me too?” he asked, responding to said generosity with gratuitous amounts of sarcasm.

        “No, because I got you a sippy straw!” And in case Q was naïve enough to think he was joking, Jim produced a curly pink straw with a flourish that made Q want to bite him.

        (Q had bitten his brother a lot when they were children. Jim had always deserved it.)

        “But,” Jim said in that detested sing-song tone, waving the straw threateningly before him, “if you promise to be good, I might be convinced to uncuff one of your hands.”

        Q scoffed, “I make no promises. I’ll have you know that fork looks awfully pointy, and would look even better in your eye socket.”

        Jim set down the straw with a dramatic sigh. “It’s because of statements like that, baby brother, that you don’t get nice things.”

        “It’s because of bastards like you, big brother, that I make those kinds of statements,” he corrected sweetly, before he sighed. He really had no idea what Jim wanted with him, not this time around. They hadn’t spoken since the Adrian incident, and Q hadn’t even sent any new computer viruses. Things had been quiet, wonderfully so, until the damned invitation. “What do you want, Jim? You don’t usually send your attack dogs just so we can share a cup of tea.”

        That last pointed comment was directed at Moran, who just smirked and inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment. Q made a mental note to put the man on America’s “Do Not Fly” list, for purely professional reasons of course. He was starting to see why Moran had lasted as long as he had, and it seemed unlikely that Jim would be taking care of that particular problem for him.

        Jim gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look that looked terribly out of place, rather like a baby koala in a tiger cage. Improbable, and likely to end very quickly with blood and tears for everyone watching. “I only wanted to spend some time with you, is that so wrong?”

        “Wrong and unbelievable.”

        “You wound me, you really do. Why can’t you believe that I find myself growing sentimental in my old age?”

        “Sentimental?” he repeated, wondering if he had been dropped into some alternative universe where unicorns flew overhead and Jim had a conscience. Alas, he doubted fate would be so kind, and his brother even less so. “More like you’re becoming dotty in your old age. You’ve never been quite this persistent before, and before you think I’ve forgotten, I want my money back, Jim.”

        His brother blinked, apparently befuddled by the idea that Q did not appreciate his hard-earned wages being stolen and spent on sex dolls. At least the last time around, Jim had been kind enough to use his _own_ damned money. “Money? What could you possibly want with money? I thought you were one of those altruistic do-gooders who dedicated his life to the _people_.” Jim made no attempt to hide his contempt at the thought of _people_ , but then he never did. “Besides, I spent it all.”

        Q took in a deep breath, slowly counting to ten before he said as calmly as he possibly could, which judging from his brother’s and Moran’s matching grins, was not very calm at all. “Yes, I know you did.”

        “Then why are you asking for it when you know I don’t have it anymore? Honestly.” Jim shook his head, as if it was Q who was the one being ridiculous. Bond wasn’t the only one who could make him feel like a bloody child, although Jim had a lot more experience doing so. “Incidentally enough, the company has a no return policy. Although I might be inclined to threaten them a bit if you help me out on something. It’s just a small thing, really, but-”

        “No,” he cut off sharply. This would be the point that he would be running, but being handcuffed to a chair rather prevented that.

        Jim sighed, “At least hear me out before you act so negative, baby brother.”

        “I don’t need to hear you out. The answer is no. We have an agreement, which I’m sure you haven’t forgotten even in your advanced age.”

        “Agreements can be modified. Agreements are modified all of the time, especially when there have been recent personnel changes.”

        Q stared. It had been some time since his brother had threatened him – well, threatened him like this, since he received threats on a more or less daily basis – which could mean nothing good. He chose not to engage, less because he thought ignoring the problem would make it go away (obviously that strategy had not been working out as of late), and more because he didn’t want to escalate the situation.

        “Besides,” Jim continued, trying for a cajoling tone and ending up somewhere in the neighborhood of terrifying and creepy, “it’s not even one of your mission. Of course it wouldn’t, you’re too scared of flying, but it’s not even MI6. All you have to do is get me some information on a certain flight and-”

        “It doesn’t matter,” he interrupted again. Maybe if he did it enough times, Jim would get the message. Highly unlikely, granted, but one could dream. And at the rate things were going, dreaming might be all he had left. “If I give into you this time, it’ll just keep escalating. So I’m ending this discussion here. And all you can do is accept that and either take me back home or drop my body in a ditch, whichever you prefer, but those are your only two options.”

        Silence. Unless one counted the way his heart was hammering in his chest, which psychopathic killers like Jim and Moran were particularly attuned to, rather like a pair of demonic hunting dogs. Q was usually able to shrug off Jim’s threats, able to give just as well as he got, but it had been a long time since Jim had asked a favor, and longer still since Q had refused. Jim would either be impressed or angry, and Q didn’t want to see Jim angry. It could very well be the last thing he ever saw.

        This was why, for the first and only time of his existence, he was grateful when the phone rang.

        Generally speaking, phone calls were not good things. Q didn’t have a personal life so he didn’t get social calls (even Adrian had communicated by text and e-mail), which meant that phone calls translated to stress, late nights, national emergencies, explosions, dead people, and/or his brother. Sometimes all at the same time.

        A sharp nod from his brother and then Moran was _really_ invading his personal space, although Q knew better than to protest as his work phone was fished out. His brother’s thug glared at the phone, before reporting, “James Bond.”

        “Bond?” Jim repeated, eyebrows furrowed. But then the name sank in and of course Jim knew exactly who Bond was and, more importantly, Q’s not entirely appropriate feelings towards the man. “Oh, of _course_. The illustrious Mr. Bond. Any reason why he would be calling you, Richie darling?”

        Q honestly had no idea, but he wasn’t about to share that piece of information. “Maybe it had something to do with you kidnapping me off the street?”

        Jim sighed, as if he was being faced with something especially tedious, rather than being the cause of headaches for everyone around him. “I suppose you have a point. Well, if duty calls, perhaps it’s best that we wrap up this little chat of ours. I can see there will be no changing your mind. Lemon tart?”

        The plate thrust in his general direction was more a threat than a question, although the real threat had now dissipated. Q stared at them dolefully, but deep down he was breathing multiple sighs of relief. “Are they poisoned?”

        “No,” Jim replied, picking one up and taking a huge bite from the pastry.

        “Damn.”

* * *

        Q decided to consider himself lucky that he wasn’t blindfolded and forced to spin in a circle three times before he was deposited at his flat, but it was a close call. Especially when he walked in to find a certain double-o agent waiting for him.

        “I see I need to upgrade my security systems,” was his curt greeting as he set down the take-out he had forced Moran to buy for him on the way back. A part of him noted sadly that he was never going to find a nice husband if he was always so snippy and ungrateful towards those who had (inadvertently) prevented him from becoming a victim of fratricide, but as always, that part was easily ignored. “Can I help you with something, 007?”

        “You didn’t pick up,” Bond replied.

        “It’s been known to happen,” he lied, even though he knew it was a terrible lie and Bond would see right through it. But he’d had a trying day (week, month, year, _life_ ), so he felt entitled to not have to commit too many brain cells to making up lame excuses.

        “Not according to Eve.”

        Q scowled. Since when was Bond known to do… _research_? Of course he knew that wasn’t fair; it wasn’t as if Bond just shot and asked questions later. The man was a spy, not just a trigger to be pulled, as the Silva incident had made clear enough. Sometimes a person on the ground was needed in a way that computers and voices through an ear piece could not replicate, and for all of his many character faults, Bond was that person for a reason.

        Speaking of reasons though, Q would very much like to know what reason Bond had for being here. The agent had better not be expecting an _apology_ , and he didn’t think Bond was here to offer one of his own either. 007 and humility generally didn’t go in the same sentence, unless there was some sarcasm involved. “Did she send you here?”

        “She explicitly told me not to bother you.”

        Everyone knew that explicitly telling Bond _not_ to do something was like waving a red flag at a bull, except with far more catastrophic results. Q immediately started flipping back through the last few days, trying to figure out what he said that would have caused Moneypenny to want to torment him like this. He was somewhere on Tuesday pub night when Bond said, “I take it that things didn’t work out?”

        There was a silence as Q just blinked at the agent, not sure exactly which of his recent humiliations was being referred to. There were so many that he had more or less lost count, requiring Bond to prompt gently, “I assume the… sex dolls were a cry for help.”

        “Oh. Those… things.” _Fuck._ Q could feel himself turning bright red again, which probably was not an attractive sight. “Someone’s very, very poor idea of a practical joke, unfortunately. But yes, in a word. Things didn’t work out.”

        “The same person responsible for the hair dye incident?” Bond asked, and Q had to resist the urge to squirm. How strange that he would rather Bond be grilling him about what exactly had happened with Adrian – information that was absolutely _none of his business_ – but he still really did not want Bond digging any deeper into Jim’s existence. Luckily, most people had assumed that the various pranks were part of some weird mating dance of a secret admirer, and various betting pools had popped up as to the identity of said admirer, ranging from a masochistic psychiatrist  to various terrorists known for their twisted senses of humor. The latter was a little too close to comfort for his taste, but as long as the pranks were harmless (to everyone except himself, anyway) and there was actual work to be done, he didn’t think anyone would make the effort to pinpoint the perpetrator. The only problem would be if someone like Bond decided to look more closely, and knowing the agent, he might just figure out what was really going on.

        “We don’t talk about that,” he said, as if that would make a difference.

        To his surprise, Bond dropped the subject. Unfortunately, it was to return to Awkward Conversation Topic #2, except what Bond said next was so out of the blue that Q was about ninety-eight percent certain that he had misheard (the other two percent thought that the drugs Moran had injected him with caused auditory hallucinations). “He might not have been a terrorist, but he must have been an idiot to let you go.”

        And before Q could do anything more than gape and stammer and generally look like a moron, Bond walked out of his flat. Q couldn’t even work up the ability to protest when the agent took half of the take-out food with him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I apparently lied about there being a delay because surprisingly enough, this chapter was easy to write. This is really saying something because I had no plans except for Jim pulling out the sippy straw. I have given up questioning how my brain chooses to function.
> 
> I am fairly certain there will be a delay next week, but who knows. Maybe if I keep telling myself that, the writing will suddenly cooperate and I will be able to update on schedule….


	7. Scorched Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Destroying anything that might be of use to the enemy while retreating, or advancing.”_

        Q spent the entire night tossing and turning, replaying Bond’s parting words and overanalyzing each and every last syllable. By the time the sun had risen, he had gone from nervous wreck to complete and utter mess, and was seriously considering the virtues of faking some debilitating disease to avoid going to work.  He just knew that Bond would be there when he got to the office, but he had no idea what to _say_ when he saw the agent. Hell, he still wasn’t sure if there was anything _to_ say because he remained convinced that last night was just a drug-induced hallucination, and would not believe otherwise prior to seeing the results from his self-administered blood test.

        Deep down, he knew that he was clinging to the hallucinations theory as a desperate attempt to protect himself from further emotional trauma. Because he wanted Bond’s words to mean exactly what they sounded like, truly he did, but was it actually possible? James Bond, 007, notorious and incorrigible womanizer? If he had any sense, he would be doing everything in his power to make sure that he did not get his hopes up, especially when he knew exactly the kind of person Bond was (dangerous, unreliable, irritating, stubborn, self-important, cynical, patriotic, honest, _human_ ). Except Q had long demonstrated that he really did lack any common sense, and that was why he knew that he would not be able to resist.

        Still, he was determined not to be one of Bond’s conquests. By this point Q’s reputation was pretty much in ruins, thanks to Jim’s antics, but even he would not stoop so low. No, he would approach this situation with his superior logic and maturity, and make sure that Bond understood that he was the quartermaster of MI6 and would not be taken advantage of.

        And then he would try very hard not to fling himself onto the walking embodiment of all of his greatest wish fulfillment fantasies in order to do filthy things with his tongue, and yes he was certain that this plan was going to be absolutely _spectacular_ and not get him fired for indecent practices in a workplace environment.

        Hiding in his flat was starting to look like a really good option right about now.

* * *

        In the end, Q decided that he had no choice but to go to work. Bond was going to hunt him down eventually, unless he took a convenient soul-searching trip to Antarctica (and even then solace from stubborn agents was not guaranteed), so he might as well be in a position to easily grab a gun and turn it upon himself if the need presented itself.

        Of course, the guns he’d had in mind were the experimental models he had been tinkering with for the past three days, and were not wielded by a gang of burly, inbred street thugs with a penchant for hitting people in the face.

        “Alright, alright,” he snarled, knowing that attitude would get him nowhere but too upset by the entire being-kidnapped-for-the-second-time-in-less-than-twenty-four-hours bit to care as much as he should have. He got one more smack in the face for his troubles, and then he found himself eyeballing a man whose overabundance of tattoos was being overshadowed by the disgusting amount of smugness on his ugly face. God, there must have been slim pickings in the criminal underworld because Jim usually had better taste in henchmen than this. As irritating as his brother was, Jim at least put some value on having a working _brain_. “Look, I already told him no, and he should know by now that this type of violence isn’t going to make me change my mind. Now I know he doesn’t like to hear that sort of thing so if you give me your phone, I’ll tell him myself and we can— _shit_ , what the _fuck_ was that for?!”

        Even as he asked the question, he knew what the answer was. As sour as things got between himself and Jim, and this certainly wasn’t the first time Q had disappointed the bastard, Jim had never resorted to quite this level of violence. Which meant… oh buggering _crap_.

        This also wasn’t the first time Q had been kidnapped (by someone other than his brother, anyway) by someone with an unhealthy interest in making trouble for Queen and country, but that didn’t mean he was used to it. While he would be the first to admit that there was something… off about him, even he did not enjoy being in the control of someone else, and the threats of maiming and death were not a treat to deal with either. And this lot seemed terribly violent even by his low standards, and quite unfortunately – judging from the absolute lack of pull from the ropes binding him to the stupidly uncomfortable chair – terribly efficient at tying knots.

        “Oh… okay, I see. Congratulations, well done you,” he said, once he was sure that Tattoo Face wasn’t going to start hitting him again. He liked to offer some encouragement before they got to the difficult part. It wasn’t quite recommended by the hostage negotiation handbook, but it hadn’t taken Q very long to realize that the hostage negotiation handbook was a piece of shit written by people who spent most of their lives safe behind concrete walls and solid locks. In contrast, Q found that starting off with a compliment or two could throw people off-guard, even if issued in the sarcastic and biting tone he personally specialized in. “I’m sure you’ve thought all of this through very thoroughly, but let’s get down to business, shall we?”

        Tattoo Face exchanged looks with the other burly men but didn’t say anything, and Q took that as permission to continue. “Alright then, I’ll lay out some of the ground rules. Now, I know you hear this all the time, but you’ll have to bear with me. One, I’m not giving you any information. Two, I’m not hacking into any computer systems for you. Three, I’m not building anything more dangerous than a teapot for you, and I’m only offering that because a nice cup of Early Grey would not be remiss right about-”

        “As if you were capable of any of those things,” Burly Man No. 1 scoffed.

        Q blinked, caught off-guard by the interruption. Most times, people allowed him to get up to number eight before pulling out the pointy instruments, and they certainly never reacted to the ground rules with _skepticism_. He honestly had to struggle not to correct them, even though he knew that in the battle between ego and breathing, the latter was supposed to win out. But Q had a huge ego, so it was a very, very close call.

        Still, if he wasn’t being kidnapped by Jim or by people interested in his skills or what he knew…. “Then what the hell am I doing here?”

        “You are Richard Moriarty, yes?”

        “… what?” Q could honestly say that he had not felt this perplexed since… well, since last night, when Bond had said what he did, but _prior_ to that it had been a while. He wasn’t sure what surprised him more: that someone knew his proper name (which thanks to some creative hacking, no longer existed in any official capacity), or the fact that this mess was apparently about a person who he wouldn’t mind being wiped off the face of the planet by a pack of rabid panda bears. “You’re… you’re kidnapping me because of my _brother_?”

        “Well, it certainly wasn’t for your sparkling personality,” someone grumbled from behind. That was probably the one he had used the taser on (let it not be said that he didn’t go down fighting), although that man shouldn’t be complaining because it had been on its lowest setting. One notch up and the man would have been uncomfortably crispy.

        Crispy might be preferable though, considering what Jim was going to do to each and every one of them once he found out what was going on. He was still having trouble believing that this could be happening to him. Hell, the time he’d nearly been sold into white slavery was not as bad as this because these morons, these insane and unfortunately _competent_ morons, had kidnapped him in order to… he didn’t even know _what_ they expected. Money? Leverage? Surely anyone who dealt with his brother knew there was little chance of that, so he just had to ask, still in shock, “Do you… do you _want_ to die slowly and painfully?”

        “The only one who is at risk of that is you if your brother doesn’t cooperate,” the amazing tattooed wonder growled, and Q shook his head despairingly.

        “I’m only trying to help,” he explained. “Although I really don’t know why I’m bothering if you’re going to be so rude. But how exactly did you think this is going to play out?”

        At this, Tattoo Face launched into a long monologue about all of the ways Jim had wronged him (and there were many, probably all legitimate), how Q was going to either get his brother here or suffer for his brother’s crimes (the latter was very possible, the former… not as much), and how _feeble_ they were all in comparison to him, how _inevitable_ their defeat was, how the world would soon be _his_ ….

        Needless to say, Q had drifted off a bit during the man’s diatribe. But he was getting the general gist of things, and so he finally cut off, “Lovely, okay, that is all very well and good, but you’re missing the point. Jim isn’t the negotiating type. Even if you had something he wanted, which you _don’t_ , he’s more of the gut-you-and-pry-it-from-your-cold-dead-fingers kind of guy.”

        Q could see some of the men in the background looking a bit worried, which was the correct emotion to display when Jim was on the horizon. Unfortunately for their long-term prospects, Tattoo Face was not one of them. Instead, he just looked smug, and Q was starting to feel embarrassed that he was ever kidnapped by these people, even if they’d had superior numbers and dangerous weaponry.

        “You’d be surprised how cooperative people become when their loved ones are being tortured.”

        He sighed. Already with the torture talk. He shouldn’t be that surprised given the spectacular bruising he could feel starting to decorate his body. “Yes, about that. I just have to correct you on that entire ‘loving’ thing because Jim isn’t really big on emotional ties. This is a person who treats sentiment as a disease, after all, so I really think you’re going to have to readjust your plans. Now, I’m not saying you _have_ to, but that’s just my friendly professional advice.”

        Tattoo Face was clearly becoming irritated, although Q attributed that less to his running his mouth and more to the bastard starting to realize that there were some glaring shortcomings to his grand schemes. But since one involved blaming himself and the other blaming Q, it was of no surprise that the man said a tad touchily, “Will someone please shut him up?”

        “You really shouldn’t. I’m trying to help you out here,” Q said, ducking the gag Burly Man No. Five was trying to force on him. The henchman wasn’t trying very hard though; morbid curiosity could do that to a person. “I mean, it’s really too late for you in terms of breathing, but if you at least do the smart thing it won’t last as long.”

        “What won’t?” Burly Man No. Four demanded, for whom patience was not a virtue.

        “Dying.”

* * *

        Things didn’t get much better from there. They got the gag on him eventually because Q had a mouth and not much self-control, and their initial amusement at his meticulously detailed descriptions of exactly how Jim was going to eviscerate them eventually gave way to vomit-inducing horror. Then they started beating on him a bit more, except this time with the added enjoyment of a live camera, which he was assured was transmitting this joyous occasion to one sociopathic older brother.

        “Say cheese,” Tattoo Face mocked, and Q had to content himself with knowing that the bastard was not long for this world.

        “Wanker,” he said through the gag, but at least no one could say that he wasn’t smiling, even if it was very toothy.

        Eventually they stopped hitting him, injecting him with something that made him feel a bit loopy. Q didn’t really appreciate the cocktail of drugs he was receiving, especially after Moran’s little stunt, but if it meant that the beating would stop, he wasn’t going to complain. Not that he was really in any position to complain.

        It was difficult to follow what was happening around him after that. But at some point, he heard a lot of screaming and smelled quite a bit of blood. This probably should have worried him, but he was fairly certain that neither the blood nor the screaming was his, so it was very difficult to care. The drugs didn’t help on that count either, nor the fact that the people who were doing the screaming were all bastards who deserved what they were getting.

        He didn’t get to enjoy it for very long though. Because then someone was approaching him and oh hell, it looked like Moran, and the bastard was _grinning_. “Hey, Richie.”

        “Oh for the love of… please be a hallucination,” he begged, but for the oddest reason this just made the grin get larger.

        “I’m not a hallucination,” Moran informed him a little too happily.

        “That’s just what a hallucination of you would say,” he responded in a tone that could be mistaken for a sulk, but the stench of blood and exposed guts was starting to make him queasy. “Besides, if you were really here, you’d be… I dunno, reveling in the bloodshed.”

        “I don’t revel.”

        “You should,” he said, his voice barely more than a mumble. It was getting a lot harder to stay awake now; he really had no idea what they had given him. Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to stop him from lecturing what he still hoped was a hallucination. “It’ll be good for you.”

        Moran laughed, but it wasn’t a happy one. “Just go to sleep, Richie. We have to take some care of some business first, and then we’ll take care of you.”

        Under normal circumstances, this would be the appropriate time to panic and flee for a remote island. But having recently been kidnapped, threatened, beaten, drugged, and tied to a chair (actually that last one was still in effect), Moran’s suggestion was not only sound, but extremely tempting. He barely had the presence of mind to whisper “okay” before the drugs and the pain and the stress pulled him into the wonderfully peaceful darkness, lulled to sleep by the sounds of the dying.

* * *

        It couldn’t last, of course. Eventually, he had to wake up, and he wasn’t surprised to be doing so in a hospital with Jim looking down at him. But just because he wasn’t surprised didn’t mean he was happy about being in the presence of his creepy fuck of a brother, and his general happiness continued to plummet when Jim said, “I am really quite vexed with you.”

        “You’re vexed?” Q said, forcing himself to sit up and wincing at the splitting agony that single motion sent through his brain. He sat there for a moment, gasping at the pain, before he repeated at a slightly higher pitch, audible only to wolves and bastard older brothers. “ _You’re_ vexed?!’

        “Yes,” Jim said, blissfully unaware of the fiery and all-consuming hatred directed in his direction. “Not only were you unwilling to help me – don’t think I’ve forgotten that – but then you had to go get yourself kidnapped. Do you know the trouble I had to go through to bring rescue you?”

        Q, because he was an ungrateful tit of a little brother, closed his eyes and counted very, very slowly to ten. As a calming technique, it worked about as well as the last time, which was to say that he still very much wanted to murder Jim for being a complete and utter arse. “I got beat up _because of you_.”

        “Don’t you have bodyguards?” Jim asked, ignoring Q trying to reach his bedpan so he could smash Jim’s brains out with it. “For someone who claims to be so important, they really don’t take care of you. Are you sure you haven’t been exaggerating your value?”

        Q finally had to stop struggling for a blunt instrument, but only because movement caused pain to shoot through his entire body. “Does MI6 know where I am?”

        “They’re on their way. Or at least I assume so, since I was also under the mistaken assumption that you mattered to them. But I pressed that emergency button of yours. The one in your thigh? Caused _quite_ a stir with the nurses, I’ll have you know, my groping at your legs.”

        Q’s brain short-circuited in a desperate attempt at self-preservation, rendering him incapable of speech or thought. Jim took this as an invitation to continue screwing with him. “Although honestly baby brother, a tracking device? That’s such an invasion of privacy. You’d almost think that they didn’t trust you.”

        The idea of Jim lecturing him about _trust_ was enough to shake him out of his misery-induced vow of silence. “Well, when you’re related to a bloody psychopath, it suddenly starts to make _a lot more sense_.”

        “You’re awfully rude for someone who had to be rescued.”

        “I wouldn’t have had to be rescued if it wasn’t for you in the first place!” Q was close to shrieking by this point, and he was surprised that the nurses hadn’t come to take Jim away or feed him some drugs. Because yes, drugs would be better at this point than his current brotherly bonding experience.

        Now it was Jim’s turn to look sulky. “It’s not like I did it on purpose. You’re not supposed to be involved. I go _out of my way_ to make sure you’re not involved.”

        Q wouldn’t be surprised if Jim was being honest there. Although Q had been thorough in erasing any electronic trail connecting him to Jim, Q was flattering himself if he thought that would be enough. They were both far too important in their respective fields to go unnoticed, and it would require their collective efforts to ensure that nobody ever realized their connection. Considering how this was the first time this had ever happened, it made sense that Jim was doing his part. He had just never been sure that his brother had enough incentive to do so. Whereas Q risked uncomfortable questions at work should they realize that he was related to an international terrorist, Jim… well, it wasn’t like he really cared what happened to Q. And they both knew it.

        Jim apparently decided to take Q’s silence as contrition, even though it was no such thing. And whether it was guilt or just the need to show off, his brother whipped out a few glossy photographs, trilling, “I brought pictures!”

        The pictures were flung onto his lap, and Q looked down and immediately regretted doing so. Luckily he hadn’t eaten that entire day because otherwise, he probably would have vomited everything back up as the fruits of Moran’s labors were illustrated in all its horrific and bloody detail. It turned out that Q might have been a little too generous in describing to his kidnappers what their likely fate was; the reality was far, far worse.

        “Ew” was his intelligent response. He looked back up at Jim. “I thought we agreed not to let things get personal.”

        “This isn’t personal,” Jim replied, picking up one of the photos and smiling fondly at it. The quality really was excellent; usually that amount of blood and exposed organs would look fake, but the photographer had managed to capture the essence of stomach-roiling grotesqueness a little too well. “This is business. If I don’t show them exactly what the consequences are of messing with my baby brother, then no one is going to take me seriously.”

        Because of course this all had to be about Jim. Q didn’t really mind; at least that explanation made _sense_ , even if it didn’t hold himself in very high esteem. But in this case, he’d rather take that particular blow to his pride than another blow to his head. That didn’t stop him from asking, “Wouldn’t it be more efficient if you just kept it a secret that I’m your younger brother?”

        “We live in the information age, Richie. That isn’t so easy anymore. You of all people should know that.”

        Q groaned, not liking the implication that he had more of this to look forward to in the future if Jim’s bloody pictures didn’t have their intended deterrent effect. “This wouldn’t be a problem if you had just become a doctor like mum wanted.”

        “Don’t fuss. After all, she wanted you to be a barrister.”

        “She always did say I liked to argue.”

        “You still do.”

        “Only with you,” he protested, but with a slight smile. If one ignored the hospital setting, the pictures, the bruises, and the context of their conversation, it could almost pass for a normal conversation. But that’s how it always worked with them.

        Jim laughed, almost fondly, standing and reaching out to ruffle his hair. The gesture should have been irritating and he would go to his grave swearing that it was, but in his more emotionally vulnerable moment, he could almost admit that it was a little comforting. “Flatterer. But I really must be off. Your MI6 cronies should be here soon, so try not to get kidnapped in the meantime, hmm?”

        “Be careful,” he warned. “That sounded suspiciously like you caring, and we both know that isn’t true.”

        “Well, I certainly don’t want you dead.”

        Q huffed a small laugh. “No, but only because you’d want to be the one to do it.”

        Jim grinned, giving him a quick little wave as he moved for the exit, “You know me too well, baby brother.”

* * *

        There was one thing that had to be said about Jim; the bastard had _excellent_ timing. Q barely had time to ease himself into a somewhat comfortable position – which, granted, took a ridiculous amount of time considering how every motion jostled at least sixteen bruises on various parts of his body – before James Bond came striding in, causing Q to swear colorfully.

        “Not quite the reaction I was hoping for,” Bond said with a perfectly arched eyebrow (because so much of him was perfect, as Q’s brain and libido liked to remind him on an almost minute-by-minute basis) as he settled into the chair that Jim had so recently occupied. “But maybe I shouldn’t be surprised given the lengths you’re willing to go to in order to avoid me.”

        Q bit his lip, resisting the urge to say that he hadn’t been trying to avoid the agent. And he hadn’t… well, not precisely. Granted, he had been in the middle of praying for a convenient act of terrorism that would prevent him from dealing with “feelings” when the gang had jumped him, but it wasn’t like he was asking for it. Between Bond and getting beat up, he would actually prefer Bond. Marginally. “Did you volunteer to come, or did M send you?”

        “M sent me.”

        Q didn’t believe that M would be so cruel as to inflict this punishment on him, especially after he had made good on his promise not to set anything on fire for three months. “So was this before or after you threatened him?”

        Bond had the audacity to look offended. “I didn’t threaten him.” When silence followed this bold proclamation, during which Q just watched him unblinkingly, Bond added reluctantly, “Bribed him, possibly, by promising not to break into his flat for the next three months. But never threatened.”

        “Charming.” Although he could certainly understand why M would give into that offer. Bond’s little forays into their private homes was not only unprofessional, but embarrassing given that they were supposed to be secure enough to keep out international terrorists.  “And why would you give up that type of leverage just to find me in a hospital bed?”

        “You know why.” At this, Q might or might not have turned a bright red, which probably looked hideous with the spectacular bruising. Maybe that was why Bond took pity on him, sparing him of the need to respond by quickly asking, “How are you feeling, Q?”

        But because Q didn’t know how to accept a favor when it was granted, instead of thanking Bond by being nice or at least answering honestly, he asked, “Is that a trick question?”

        And because Bond was a masochist, instead of truly being offended and walking away, the agent just gave him a sideways smile. Under normal circumstances it would be condescending but in his weakened state (or so he would claim), it just continued to send blood to his face. “Sounds like you’re fine. A bit grumpy though.”

        “Not all of us are used to having our faces stand in for punching bags,” he replied, pointedly looking at the lovely collection of scrapes Bond had picked up in India. There were quite a few of them, but they unfortunately did nothing to detract from the agent’s overall attractiveness. “Honestly, Bond, I don’t know how you put yourself through it.”

        Bond shrugged. “The company can be well worth it.” And now it was Bond’s turn for a pointed look.

        He knew that he couldn’t avoid the issue forever. He knew that Bond couldn’t be patient forever, and that the agent had already displayed far more tolerance for his pathetic attempts at changing the subject than he deserved. He knew that deep down, he wanted to address what was hanging between them because he needed to know where they stood, whether for better or for worse. But he didn’t know how to start, and something pathetically pleading must have shown up on his face because the next thing he knew, Bond was sliding closer.

        This time, he had enough sense to not say something snarky or sarcastic or anything at all, letting Bond put calloused fingers to his face. Q had seen video of those fingers snapping necks, but Bond’s touch was gentle even considering how tender his face currently was. He wanted to lean into that touch, regardless of the pain it would undoubtedly cause (both in the present and in the future), but settled instead for asking, “Why?”

        His mind screamed, shrieking at an unholy pitch to just _shut up and accept it because fuck this was actually happening_ but he couldn’t. Q had never been the type of person to just sit back and accept things because it was his experience that everything came with strings attached. And when it came to Bond, that string just happened to be attached to a row of corpses, and he knew that every move Bond took was weighed down by those bodies, by a past that would have broken most other people.

        But Bond wasn’t most people. Somehow, despite it all, he picked himself up and kept on moving, and Q had no idea how he managed it. Perhaps that is what he found most attractive about the agent, that singular ability to keep on trying. At times it made him feel stupidly inferior because no matter how many gadgets he invented or terrorists he took down through the networks, it wasn’t the same as putting oneself through the field day after day, collecting both physical and mental scars that should have destroyed him utterly.

        This was one of those times. Q wasn’t so pathetic as to think he didn’t have anything to offer, but he also wasn’t so arrogant to think that what he did have to offer was _enough_. Because if anyone deserved something more, it was James Bond. James Bond, who was using his other hand to take Q’s wrist and gently pull it close. James Bond, who was currently pressing a kiss against his fluttering pulse. James Bond, who was there despite everything, and even now all Q could do was continue to try and sabotage himself by adding, “I highly doubt I am your type.”

        “You’re not my type,” Bond confirmed as the kisses moved up Q’s arm, causing him to shudder. He was barely coherent now as Bond continued past his shoulder and to his neck, just barely having the presence of mind to scrabble for the heart monitor because this had the potential to go from being very good to very embarrassing very, _very_ quickly.

        “Smart?” he just managed to get out breathlessly.

        Bond stopped. He didn’t quite pull back but Q immediately knows that he had said something wrong, and so he was the one to move away in mortified horror. The expression on the agent’s face wasn’t quite… bitter, but it was so close that it only sent Q’s heart beating even faster as he waited for Bond to walk away or stab him with a pen. He wasn’t sure which would be worse at this point.

        But his fear and his apology (he doesn’t even know what he is apologizing _for_ ) must also have appeared on his face because Bond’s expression was softening as he closed the distance that Q had inadvertently created between them. There wasn’t any more of the playful flirtation of his previous actions, but that just seemed to make all the more certain that this… whatever this was, it wasn’t a game to Bond. It didn’t do anything to answer any of Q’s questions as to why now, why _him_ , but he knew without a doubt that if they were to go through with this, if he was to allow this to continue on, he was making a commitment. And the gravity of that commitment was underscored when Bond replied, his voice barely above a whisper, “ _Breathing_.”

        This time, he couldn’t help himself. It hurt so much because those bastards really did do a number on him, but he didn’t care. Nothing else mattered as he wrapped his arms around Bond and pulled the man close, resting his head on the shoulder (just above the jagged scarring) as he promised quietly, “I’ll try not to disappoint then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that was a _The Incredibles_ reference.
> 
> I know, I know, I like getting Q kidnapped. A lot. I think it’s the hair. I actually had a fun conversation about this with my friend (who is an old school James Bond fan who refuses to watch _Skyfall_ ), in which she demanded to know how Q would get kidnapped when he is supposed to be in the lab 24/7. I gamely attempted to point out he had to use the bathroom sometime, to which she responded he probably had a bathroom built in the lab. The conversation went downhill from there.
> 
> And once again, not sure about an update next week. The writing has been moving along quite well but I only finished this chapter today, so it's hard to judge. I live in hope though!


	8. Pincer Ambush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“A ‘U’-shaped attack with the sides concealed and the middle held back until the enemy advances, at which point the concealed sides ambush them.”_

        One gray day, Q stepped out of his bedroom to find Sebastian Moran lurking in his flat.

        On that same day, Q took the advice that had been given to him a few weeks back and promptly shot the man.

* * *

        “Please, it was just your shoulder,” Q said distractedly, inspecting the camera Moran had been trying to insert into his bookshelf. The camera was of excellent quality but was also far larger than it needed to be, an automatic source of suspicion given that Jim with his vast reserves of illegally obtained money could have done better. No doubt Jim had expected him to find it eventually, although the chosen location suggested it was not to be discovered before Jim had amassed sufficient blackmail material to make the rest of his life (well, _one_ of their lives) absolutely miserable. And it was, admittedly, a good location to do just that; Q rarely had the energy to go through his bookshelf these days, which was filled with old textbooks and Discworld novels he would never have the time to read, as well as a deplorable amount of dust. Hell, he wasn’t sure why he even had a bookshelf anymore. The only reading he did these days was on a screen, and-

        He sighed as his musings were cut off by a snarled curse, forcing him to set the camera down. “There really is no need for such histrionics, Mr. Moran.”

        Oddly enough, this just seemed to inspire more loud-pitched overreaction. _Honestly_ , it was as if the man had never been shot before.

        “Fuck, fuck, fuck, buggering _fuck_ , you fucking _shot_ me, you goddamn little _prick_ ,” Moran roared at him, fully justifying his habit of soundproofing his flat as soon as he moved in. The last thing he needed was for his new landlord to come around and see the blood all over the floor, which would not only require him to move but would almost certainly result in the loss of his tenancy deposit. _Yet again_.

        He rolled his eyes before replying tartly, “Again, there’s no need to be so rude. And I really would rethink all of your cursing at me. It’s not very creative, and more importantly, it’s not very becoming of a man in your position.”

        (That position being, specifically, (a) writhing on the ground, (b) staining his carpet with copious amounts of blood, and (c) having a gun pointed at a more vital organ. But maybe that was just him.)

        “Besides,” he continued, pointedly ignoring the abuse that continued to rain down upon him now that he had made the mistake of giving the man his attention, “I was only taking your words to heart. Maybe you should have thought of that before you broke into my flat to skulk in dark corners.”

        “You weren’t supposed to be here,” Moran snarled, as if that somehow justified the breaking and entering bit.

        “And miss this?” Q replied with a bright smile. “I wouldn’t _dream_ of it. In any case, I didn’t really have a choice. Now, you might be unaware of this sort of thing because I doubt my brother offers any employment benefits, but it turns out that MI6 has a mandatory post-torture leave period. And, thanks to your boss, I was forced to take it.” Because no, even if Jim had sent people to rescue him, Q was not about to forgive _or_ forget that the reason why he had needed rescuing in the first place was because of some ridiculous feud that Jim had no doubt caused. Even if he was not about to shed any tears over the gruesome deaths of his kidnappers (being beaten black and blue tended to diminish his already limited supply of sympathy), he had no doubt that their grievances against Jim were legitimate.

        “You’re still going on about that?” Moran asked, which Q found ironic seeing how the man was still having a fit over being shot. The _hypocrisy_ of it all. “That was three bloody weeks ago. Isn’t it high time you got over it?”

        Three bloody weeks indeed. At the time, Q had been too busy trying not to pass out to notice that the pictures Jim had shown him had only included three distinct bodies, whereas there had been six kidnappers. Since then, various bodies had been turning up, each in increasingly desecrated states. The last of those bodies involved a man – or what was left of a man – whose skin had been meticulously peeled away, except for where his tattoos were. From what he had heard on the police scanners before the vomiting of the less seasoned officers had started, the man had been alive for quite a bit of that little procedure.

        Of that, he had little doubt, as Moran was so very good at his job. Of course, that probably meant he should be a little more kind to the man if he didn’t want to one day end up undergoing that same operation. But Q had never been practical and he was rather tired of Jim’s little stunts, so he decided to respond with sarcasm. “Would you believe me if I said I was mentally scarred by the incident?”

        The contemptuous glare he received left him no doubts about that, as did the snarling sound Moran made. It was a sound that Q imagined preceded a wounded animal trying to rip out someone’s throat, and he made sure to tighten his grip on the gun while keeping a safe distance from the man. He still remembered all too well what had happened the last time he had a gun to Moran’s head, and he wasn’t interested in a repeat performance. Or more truthfully, he wasn’t sure he would _survive_ a repeat performance.

        He made sure not to show his concerns about his long-term survival show, instead making a contented humming sound that was guaranteed to make Moran even crankier than he already was. “I thought not. Well, you really have no one to blame but yourself. You should have rescued me earlier, shouldn’t you? It’s not _my_ fault that when I leave my flat, I cause small children to tremble.”

        That had been embarrassing, and in retrospect, he had probably been pushing his luck trying to come back to work two and a half weeks early and on ‘bring your child to work’ day no less. Although _that_ was a tradition he fully intended on banning once he was back, as he had enough children ruining his life between the destructive tendencies of his brother and the various double-o agents, including-

        Ah. James. Three weeks in and he still couldn’t think of 007 without getting a bit… soppy. It was downright embarrassing, really, but Q could think of worse things (his brother’s murderous minion bleeding all over his carpet, for example). Hell, Bond – _James_ , he was still getting used to that – was the only reason why he hadn’t gone stir-crazy by the enforced leave period, as the agent provided a welcome distraction after Tanner and Eve had combined forces to _literally_ wrestle away his work phone and MI6-issued laptop.

        Not that he couldn’t have hacked in anyway (and he might have, twice or twenty times), and not that “distraction” was really the right word for… this. Whatever “this” was. Q had to admit to some trepidation when he was released from the hospital, unsure of whether James’s interest would continue once he was no longer in mortal danger. His skepticism probably wasn’t fair to the agent, but like it or not James’s reputation preceded him.

        Of course, deep down he knew that fixating on James’s reputation was just a cover for the real problem, which was the nagging feeling of… it wasn’t inadequacy, per se, but it was something very close. It was like he was waiting for James to realize, as everyone else had, that Q didn’t have much to offer to a relationship beyond an acerbic sense of humor, horrendous work-life balance, and the ability to make exploding pens (which he still refused to do, in any case). Q was smart, yes, but smart didn’t translate to dateable. In his case, smart translated to exasperating, as he seemed to be programmed to prove his intelligence by being as obnoxious as possible. It was a habit he blamed on Jim because being obnoxious was the only way he could get his brother to respect him as a child, and it had followed him to adulthood.

        That was why his first meeting with 007 had involved that truly cringe-worthy speech about the damage he could do in his pajamas, a speech made even more cringe-worthy by James’s happy discovery that he didn’t actually wear pajamas to bed. But rather than scare James off, as most normal people would react, the agent kept coming back. It was just another reminder that James wasn’t normal, and that was exactly what Q liked so much about him.

        Well, that was _one_ of the things Q liked about him. James’s reputation had preceded him in more ways than one, and-

        “Pardon the interruption of your daydreaming,” Moran said a tad snippily. “But do you have some gauze or bandages or maybe just a plastic bag I could wrap around the bleeding wound you caused?”

        He scowled back, not pleased with the fact that he was being torn away from his daydreams about James’s extremely fine arse to deal with the arse who had broken into his flat. Well, Moran wasn’t the only one who could be snippy, “Maybe you should have thought about that before you cursed me out. There’s something to be said about being _polite_ when you’re asking a favor.”

        Obviously, polite was not a word commonly found in Moran’s vocabulary. “You’re a right bastard, aren’t you, Richie?”

        “Don’t call me that,” he replied automatically. “It’s just a cruel reminder of how poor I am because of Jim’s inability to act like a normal human being.”

        “Normal is overrated,” Moran said, completely serious and completely insane. No wonder Jim had kept him around for so long. “Although I’m not sure you’re one to talk given that you’re the one who sent him a ten pence coin cellotaped to a birthday card that wouldn’t stop singing even when it was closed.”

        “Of course it wouldn’t,” he replied, knowing he should be doing more shooting and less gossiping, but he was ever so easily distracted by talk about his inventions. That one had been a particularly good one too, although he’d never had the time to follow up on what had happened to it. “Who do you think designed it?”

        Moran closed his eyes, which might have due to the continued blood loss but was probably the painful memory of the same song playing on loop, over and over again. Q had made sure to find the most insufferable version of the birthday song possible, finally choosing one that involved bells and small children singing. Jim hated children. Well, Q did as well, but Jim’s hatred was legendary. “He had to _burn_ it.”

        “Yes, I thought he might.”

        “Upon which it _exploded_.”

        “Yes, I thought he might,” he repeated with a bland smile, reveling in the imagery before forcing himself to get back down to business. As delightful as this conversation was, he needed to get started cleaning if he wanted to avoid the awkward questions James would no doubt have regarding the bloodstains. “Now, enough of the warm, fuzzy memories. Do you want to explain what you are doing here, or do I have to ask Jim myself?”

        Truth be told, he really hoped Moran would choose the former because the last thing he wanted was to get drawn into a conversation with his brother. Q was far from practical, having decided to turn his hobby of inventing dangerous objects into a career that made him a target of every terrorist on the planet (and then compounding that mistake by jumping into a relationship with James Bond, thus making himself a two-for-one special for all the people James had ever crossed), but even he had his limits.

        Of course, this was precisely why Moran grinned – well, grimaced – and said, “Now what would be the fun of that? Give him a call if you like, but I don’t think you’re going to get the answers you want.”

        That wasn’t saying very much; he never got the answers he wanted from Jim, if only because the answers he wanted were of the “Yes, of course I will never bother you again” variety. But he wasn’t about to tell Moran that, instead fumbling for his phone, a task that was made harder by the imperative need to keep an eye (and weapon) on the trained killer bleeding on his floor. A trained killer who, to Q’s increasing concern, was giving him a look that suggested electrocution was in his near future.

        The look was upgraded to electrocution _and_ piranhas when Q frowned, having been sent almost immediately to voicemail. _Voicemail_. This wasn’t the first time he had got voicemail but there was something… off about this whole situation. Why would Jim send Moran here, only to ignore his call when he called to complain? Jim liked his complaining; that was why he _did_ this sort of thing in the first place. So what the hell was going on?

        He hung up before it could get to the part about leaving an interesting message or risk being skinned for shoes, a threat that was not made in jest. He had always wondered who had influenced who when it came to the predilection for skinning, or if Jim and Moran got along so famously because of their mutual love for it. Either way, he was increasingly concerned about what Jim was planning, and after a moment’s hesitation he turned his attention back to Moran and held out a hand. To cover for his (legitimate) fear that Moran would try to rip his hand off with his teeth, he demanded in what he hoped was an imperious tone, “Give me your phone.”

        Moran’s grin just got larger, which was impressive given that he was the one still bleeding from a bullet wound. For someone who had been so touchy about the subject earlier, he was distressingly unaffected by the actual wound. “Why?”

        “So I can call your prick of a boss, that’s why.”

        The man just tutted, shaking his head as if feeling shame for the poor, pitiful mortal before him. “He’s not available. Unlike _some_ people, he has to work for a living.”

        The irony was not lost on him, and he responded like the mature adult human he was: by flipping Moran off. “Yes, because of course I’m going to take the word of a criminal underling,” he said, with only minimal sarcasm. “Now give me your phone before I shoot something more vital.”

        He very nearly did shoot again even though Moran did as he asked. Unfortunately, as he hadn’t been expecting any form of cooperation and Moran was not kind enough to just _hand_ him the phone, he was completely unprepared for the phone being tossed in his direction. And because he was completely unprepared, it ended up smacking him in the forehead.

        Q liked to think he maintained his composure rather well considering what had just happened, and he liked to think that he was merciful when he didn’t shoot the bastard in the face when Moran started sniggering. Instead, he quickly picked up the phone and started scrolling through the contacts (keeping one eye on Moran in the meantime). Theoretically, he knew that he should be using this opportunity to memorize all of Jim’s criminal contacts so that he could order some targeted nuclear strikes to ensure that Jim wouldn’t have to work for a living any longer, but unlike his brother he knew how to keep his side of the bargain. Thus, he went straight for Jim’s number, whereupon he was immediately sent to voicemail. _Again_.

        “I told you he wasn’t available,” Moran said in a tone that could only be described as condescending.

        He shot the man a dark look. “And again, why would you ever think I would take your word for it?” he asked rhetorically, tossing the phone back at Moran. The criminal caught it easily, which only underscored the oddness of the situation. Despite the bullet to the shoulder, Moran was still extremely dangerous – perhaps more so than usual – and Q definitely had the feeling that the only reason why he was in control of the situation was because Moran was permitting it. Which was to say, he was very definitely not in control. Still, he forced himself to ask lightly, “Do I dare ask what the hell he is doing?”

        “He has an appointment with the British Government.” A fleeting look of panic must have shown on his face in response to that because Moran started laughing, even harder than when he had nearly been brained by a bloody cell phone. “Not _your_ precious British Government, Richie. Don’t worry, it doesn’t concern you.”

        “Why is it that you people think that telling me not to worry is somehow comforting?”

        Moran just grinned, before slowly pushing himself to his feet. Q felt rather like he was watching a slow-motion video of a shark throwing itself out of the water to chomp on a sea lion, and knew that this was the part he should probably start shooting, but instead just stood there, as the man stiffly made his way to where Q had left the camera. Wordlessly, Moran pocketed the thing before turning towards the door, completely unconcerned about the gun still pointed at him. “Well, I’ll be off then. I’ll give your regards to Mr. Moriarty.”

        “Moran…” he hesitated as Moran turned to face him, a patient smile on his face. Q wasn’t… it wasn’t that he was scared, but he was definitely unnerved. He spent so much of his time being surrounded by the most dangerous men and women in Britain, and had a complete and utter psychopath as his brother, and goodness knew he wasn’t going to be winning any awards for sanity this century. But Moran’s complete disdain for any danger he might have posed truly made him feel like his continued existence was a privilege, not a right, and he liked to think that any person in his situation would hesitate as well. Although the feeling didn’t pass, his hesitation did, and he continued, “This isn’t going to end well for anyone, is it?”

        There was one thing he could say about the man; he was certainly honest, if only because he obviously didn’t think Q posed enough of a threat to bother lying to. “Probably not,” Moran said simply, before walking out of his flat.

* * *

        To Sebastian’s surprise, Moriarty made it back first.

        “You’re looking well,” he grunted as he watched Moriarty play with an ice pack. His boss’s torso was a mess of bruises that made Richard’s beating look tame in comparison, but really the men who had kidnapped the younger Moriarty were a bunch of incompetents. It was embarrassing that he had to spend any amount of energy on finding them, embarrassment that he had been more than happy to relieve by prolonging their deaths.

        “Yes, well, British hospitality just isn’t what it used to be,” Moriarty sighed, before inspecting him with a critical eye. “What happened to your shoulder? Don’t tell me Richie got the better of you.”

        There was that hint of fondness Moriarty always had when speaking of his younger brother doing something not quite legal, a fondness he didn’t understand at all. He searched for a diplomatic way of responding to the question. “Your brother is… interesting.”

        “Mm, I suppose,” Moriarty said, before shaking his head. “But he’s not willing to play the game. That’s always been his problem. He thinks he is, but he’s really not.”

        That might have been a good thing, all things considered. Sebastian had a long memory, and he wasn’t about to forget the way Richard had reacted during their first meeting. The younger Moriarty’s grip had been steady and his fundamentals good (although it was still too easy to break free and turn the tables on the boy), and his eyes had glinted very much like his boss’s in a dangerous mood. There was no forgetting that the two were related, and that Moriarty’s interest went beyond family affection. Moriarty was not the sentimental kind, and would not waste his time or resources on someone who wasn’t worth the effort, even if they were tied together by blood.

        That was why he had been sent to that flat in the first place. It was going too far to say that Moriarty was worried about his brother’s welfare, but his boss had not been happy about the kidnapping. Sebastian thought that was on Richard and MI6, but Moriarty had taken personal affront to it. Not that he was complaining, since it gave him a reason to be more… thorough in his execution, although he had been less pleased when he’d been dispatched to Richard’s flat while Moriarty played punching bag to the British Government’s interrogators over the last few weeks.

        Speaking of that, “So learn anything interesting?”

        Moriarty hummed, happier than Sebastian had ever seen him. “Oh _yes_. You’d be amazed at what people are willing to tell you for something that doesn’t even exist. And you’d be even more amazed at what _intimate_ details they’ll tell you, especially when they don’t think it’s very important. People who would rather die than tell you state secrets, but provide the right incentive and they’ll tell you _everything_ about the people they care about.” Moriarty’s eyes closed in lazy contentment, before he asked, “And how was your trip, Moran? Have anything to show for it besides a bullet hole?”

        The question was asked in Moriarty’s typical fashion: light, airy, and with a dark threat hanging over every word. Wordlessly, Sebastian tossed the camera at his boss. As he had expected, it didn’t take long at all for Moriarty to understand what he had done, and his boss purred, “Oh, aren’t _you_ clever.”

        He indicated the computer. “It’s all yours, sir.”

        Moriarty was remarkably spry for someone who was covered in bruises, and Sebastian smiled slightly even as he made his way for their medical supplies. It didn’t take long before Moriarty was oohing and ahhing at whatever was on the screen, thanks to the much better quality camera that Sebastian had already planted before Richard had come across him. Not that he was planning on getting caught, let alone _shot_ , but Sebastian liked to be prepared. He was a little surprised that the younger Moriarty hadn’t followed up on his visit by doing another search of the flat, but it quickly became clear what had distracted Richard from doing just that.

        “Well,” Moriarty said after a long moment. Sebastian wasn’t sure what his boss had been expected, but he would hazard a guess that Richard wrapping himself around a notoriously destructive double-o agent like a particularly possessive octopus was probably not high on the list of likely scenarios. Moriarty could barely contain his glee as he said, a smile spreading across his face, “This is going to be so much _fun_.”

* * *

        “Q?”

        It took him a moment to realize that James was staring at him in concern, which was probably the correct reaction to have when the person you had been merrily making out with abruptly pulled away. It took him longer still to realize that a response was probably in order, lest James think that he suffered a minor stroke or worse, a sudden lack of interest.

        “I…” Q blinked, struggling to come up with an explanation that made some sense. Not that very much in his life was making sense today. Even though he had managed to escape his latest encounter with Moran unscathed, and had even cleaned up the bloodstains just before James had come in (through the window because of course the man couldn’t just use the bloody door), he still couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something… off. “I just had a… feeling.”

        The explanation sounded lame, even (especially) to himself, but James hadn’t lasted as long as he had by ignoring basic instincts. So instead of being mocking, the agent only said quietly, “I see. Any particular reason?”

        There were a lot of reasons, actually, but none he wanted to share at the moment. Or ever. He wasn’t sure how long he would be able to lie about it, even though – and despite what James thought – he really was a good liar. It was just that the agent was terribly good at seeing through lies, and the bigger the lie, the harder it was to keep up. This was doubly true when it came to Jim, who under the best of circumstances was audacious and inescapable, but Q was determined that for once in his life, his brother was not going to fuck things up for him. Not this time.

        “No,” he finally said, closing his eyes as James started to rub comforting circles on his back. He had a feeling that James did it not only to calm him, but to gauge his tension. Still, it was surprisingly easy to relax as he leaned in closer to the agent, continuing more to himself than to James, “I’m sure it was nothing.”

        He could only hope that he was finally going to be right for a change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So of course after I don’t rule out a chapter update, I immediately run into writer’s block. Brain, meet bitter irony.
> 
> But seriously, I am incredibly, incredibly sorry about the delay. I wish I could say that this will be the last of the delays, but work has become crazy so I don’t really think there will be an update next week. Maybe I’ll be lucky and this will suddenly put me back into productive writing mode, but unfortunately, I have a feeling that the universe has finally caught onto my attempts to trick it.


	9. In Extremis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“A situation of such exceptional urgency that immediate action must be taken to minimize imminent loss of life or catastrophic degradation of the political or military situation.”_

        It was most definitely _not_ nothing.         

        In retrospect, he should have seen it coming. Hell, he should have realized it the moment Moran’s body failed to turn up in the morgue because Jim didn’t have much – well, _any_ – tolerance for failure. Which meant that Moran must not have failed. Which meant that Moran had succeeded.

        Which meant that Q was completely and utterly _fucked_.

        He liked to think that he had been distracted by work, by a semi-functional relationship that he had yet to screw up, and by the fact that he just really, really didn’t want his life to revolve around the madman he was forced by cruel fate to call his brother. He liked to think these were legitimate reasons why he didn’t search every bloody inch of his flat for hidden cameras, or just plain moved again. He liked to think all of these things, but most of all, he liked to think about how much better the world would be if lightning suddenly struck the human being standing before him.

        Or himself. He would settle for himself right about now.

        Q didn’t know what had possessed him to open the door, but he immediately tried to rectify that mistake by slamming the door in his brother’s smug face. Unfortunately, Jim managed to get a shoe in before Q could get it shut, and he hoped viciously that the bastard’s foot was broken by the force of his desperation.

        “What are you doing here,” he hissed. It wasn’t a question because they both knew that Jim was there because he was an interfering arse who apparently had nothing better to do than to make his brother’s life a living hell.

        And damn if he wasn’t doing an _excellent_ job at it.

        “Q?” James asked, and there was a sound very much like a gun being pulled. Q turned, torn between telling the agent to put that damn thing away before he blew someone’s eye out or instructing him to just start shooting and not take his finger off the trigger until Jim was a raw, bloody mess, but that was an obvious mistake as Jim took advantage of his temporary distraction to shove open the door. Jim had always possessed a surprising amount of strength, considering how both he and Q seemed genetically cursed to resist muscle development, and Q just missed being brained by his own door as his brother forced his way into his flat and his life.

        “Oh, put that away, you don’t need _that_ ,” Jim trilled at James, who to Q’s immense relief did no such thing. That relief didn’t last long as Jim turned back to grace with Q with a derisive smile, “Do tell your guard dog to stand down, baby brother, or this may very well end in _tears_.”

        One didn’t need to be a double-o agent to hear the implicit threat there, and Q practically had to fling himself at James to keep the agent from shooting. He didn’t know why he was bothering and more importantly, he didn’t know why he was being forced to do so in the first place. Granted, he had never had the displeasure of watching Jim interact with people from his “normal” life, but his brother seemed to be _begging_ for a fight with his current behavior, and he had no idea why. But he didn’t have time to try and figure out the mental workings of his brother (a task that really would end in tears), and so he tried to force himself to stay calm as he said, “James, stop. It’s alright.”

        Like hell it was. Not even the best liar in the world could make that sound remotely sincere, and it was even more impossible when Jim was practically prancing through his flat like a unicorn on drugs. The only thing missing from that picture were bloody _rainbows_ , although judging from the clench of James’s jaw, there was an increasingly high likelihood that his flat was going to be adorned with copious amounts of red if he didn’t get this situation under control soon. “ _007_.”

        Q had never seen this side of James, not like this. It was very different, seeing 007 on a computer screen versus having 007 in his flat, pointing a gun at his brother. The sad thing was that he used to dream of this, savoring the expression on Jim’s face as he faced righteous retribution in the form of a double-o agent, but as always, the reality was far different (and far less satisfying) from his fantasies. Jim was clearly enjoying himself but he was the only one; James was still more than ready to shoot, and Q was starting to wonder if the only thing stopping the agent was his indecision on _who_ to shoot first.

        He wasn’t sure if he would blame him. Q hadn’t… he hadn’t _lied_ to James. The topic had simply never come up, although Q _would_ be lying if he claimed that he was depending on the fact that nobody would bring it up (because he certainly was not going to be the one to volunteer information about his only remaining family). James, as most people did, probably assumed that he was alone in the world – an assumption backed up by his personnel files, which he knew the agent had gone through – and Jim had never got involved in his relationships before.

        Of course, the latter might have been because of Q’s theory that Jim didn’t involve himself because he didn’t have to, since Q was perfectly capable of screwing up his relationships on his own, thank you very much. The fact that Jim was here meant that his semi-functional relationship was serious enough that his brother felt it necessary to intervene. That was an encouraging thought, if thoroughly tempered by the fact that Jim’s intervention likely meant there wouldn’t be a relationship left in about ten minutes.

        Q didn’t know how much of that showed on his face, but when James turned to look at him, Q could feel his heart clench slightly. There had always been a part of him that was utterly convinced that James was psychic, and that part would have been dancing in triumph if it wasn’t for the current situation. Because he knew that, once again, he was being unfair towards the agent and should never have doubted him. James’s expression… there was still a definite tension, yes, but even without words, the agent was able to clearly convey that it was not directed towards him.

        That look, that… _trust_ (because truly, that was what it was), especially from someone like James Bond, was something Q knew could not be taken lightly. Trust was hard to come by in their line of work, and especially hard given the things James had been through. He wanted to respond in like, to show that he understood how much it meant, but he was too aware of Jim watching with bright-eyed interest. So rather than reciprocate, he forced himself to swallow and say as calmly as he could manage, “That is my brother.”

        James turned towards Jim, an eyebrow raised but at least he was lowering his weapon. “So I gathered.”

        “Hello!” Jim waggled his fingers in greeting. Q wanted to take each of those fingers and break them, one by bloody one, and that feeling only intensified as Jim flopped down on the sofa, smiling beatifically, “I _do_ hope I wasn’t interrupting anything important.”

        Q shot him a flat glare, “He only shows up to cock block, and he has a horrible sense of timing.”

        “Excuse you,” Jim’s exaggerated look of protest would have been comical if it was happening to anyone else in the world, “but for that type of thing, I think I have _excellent_ timing.”

        “He’s also a complete bastard,” Q continued, deliberately ignoring said bastard except to mouth ‘ _I will end you_ ’ at Jim.

        Unfortunately, Q wasn’t the only one who knew how to ignore people, as demonstrated by Jim’s careful inspection of his nails, completely uninterested in the chaos he was single-handedly causing. “I think our parents in heaven would object to that, Richie.”

        “Richie,” James repeated, sounding slightly less tense and almost _amused_ , but if the only way to defuse the situation was with his own humiliation, Q was more than ready to have James pick up the gun again.

        “Yes,” Jim said with too much cheer, before Q could respond. “I mean, he did tell you his name, right? Didn’t hide that from you too?”

        “Of course I know his name,” James lied smoothly, although it wasn’t a lie – not from James’s perspective, at least. Q knew that the agent had gone through his personnel file shortly after the Silva incident; he didn’t care, nothing in that file was a secret, although he hoped James had got a good laugh from some of his more outrageous attempts to horrify the psych department. But judging from the smug look on Jim’s face (a look he dearly wished to wipe from existence), Jim knew that the name in his file was not the one he and Q were talking about.

        That was because in addition to the creative and not entirely legal hacking to destroy any records that named him “Richard Moriarty,” Q had also legally changed his last name. He had done it with Jim’s blessing as it was to both their benefit to keep their familial connection unknown, which was exactly why Q couldn’t believe when Jim rolled his eyes and fake yawned, “If that’s what you think, far be it for me to question you. And as for _you_ , Richie, aren’t you going to introduce us already? For someone who is supposed to be the socially adept one of the family, you’re certainly botching this whole introduction affair.”

        “Like you don’t already know,” he hissed, wondering if James’s opinion of him would change if he suddenly launched himself at Jim and strangled the bastard. Either that would result in an awkward breakup talk as the police (or worse, the _psychiatrists_ ) took him away, or really hot sex next to his brother’s cooling corpse.

        The latter made it almost tempting.

        “It’s still the polite thing to do, I am told,” Jim said with a shrug, as if he actually cared about being polite.

        Q could list all the things Jim did that weren’t polite, starting with drowning small children and ending with _coming to his flat uninvited_ , and that might have been why he snapped, “Well, you can take your polite thing and shove it up your ar-”

        “Bond,” James interrupted, putting a hand on Q’s shoulder. Q didn’t know if the gesture was supposed to be calming or protective (perhaps even possessive), but it was enough to keep him from attacking his brother and engaging in some well-deserved slapping and hair-pulling. “James Bond.”

        “James? _I’m_ James too!” Jim said with an exaggerated shriek of joy that caused Q to viciously think ‘ _Die, die, die_ ’ at his brother. Not only did Jim ignore his directive and continue to exist most loudly and inappropriately, but Q’s rage issues were heightened by Jim’s conspiratorial whisper, “Do you think he’s _projecting_?”

        Q practically choked on his own vomit, and even James looked appalled as the agent started to realize exactly how crazy his potential brother-in-law was. Once he could properly breathe again, Q snarled, “One more word, Jim, and I swear I will hack your phone and send all of your incoming calls to a sex line.”

        “You tried that before, remember?” Jim replied, before leering. “And who would be able to tell the difference anyway? I’ve been told that I have an _excellent_ sex line voice.”

        “By who, your parole officer?” he shot back, just a bit snidely.

        “He’s joking,” Jim informed James solemnly. “He knows I would never be caught doing something illegal.”

        “The operative word there being ‘ _caught_.’”

        Jim shrugged as he stretched lazily on the sofa. Q decided that he was going to burn that sofa as soon as he possibly could, preferably with Jim still on it. “It only matters if you’re caught. Isn’t that right, Mr. Bond?”

        The words were cruel and designed to hit hard, and Q had to literally bite his tongue to stop himself from telling Jim to leave James alone. If he knew anything, it was that James was more than capable of standing up for himself. While Jim had a way of getting under a person’s skin, this wouldn’t be the first (or last) time that James had to face this type of psychological warfare, as he ably demonstrated with his dry response. “I would imagine it also depends on who is involved. Some prisons are far more accommodating than others.”

        Jim’s lips curled back into a truly ghastly smile. “Oh, I _like_ him, Richie. Can I have him, pretty please?”

        It was Q’s turn to become possessive, finally pulling away from James so that he could stand before Jim as he said as clearly as was humanly possible, “ _No_.” He almost added ‘over my dead body,’ but Jim would just take that as a challenge.

        “You always were a selfish brat,” Jim sighed, before pointing dramatically at James. The agent looked entirely unimpressed by the finger being pointed at him, and even less so when Jim demanded, “You! Be a dear and get us some food, will you?”

        James obviously had zero interest in following Jim’s orders, but Q immediately saw what the agent couldn’t: Jim was offering him out. He just didn’t understand why, since presumably Jim was here to traumatize James and make Q miserable, and the best way of doing both at once would be to have James here. But instead, Jim was sending the agent away, and Q couldn’t imagine why (well, actually he could, although then that would require Jim to have stationed a few ninja assassins right outside his flat, ready to swoop down on the next person who walked out. Which wasn’t that far of a stretch, considering the Chinese acrobats). Well, it didn’t matter; he knew that given what Jim was capable of, it was best for him to play along, and so even though he wanted nothing more than to cling to James and beg him not to leave him alone, Q said, “Please, James. Our usual takeaway place will be fine.”

        “Hm,” James said, still watching Jim with a healthy dose of skepticism, all of which was warranted. “You’ll be alright, Q?”

        No, he probably wouldn’t, but he had no doubt that the alternative would be far worse. “I’ll be fine. I just need to talk with Jim.”

        “In _private_ ,” Jim added, like the complete and utter prick he was. “We need to compare notes on how you do in the bedr-”

        Q slammed the palm of his hand into Jim’s face.

* * *

        The door had barely closed behind James when Jim turned to Q and said with a cruel (if somewhat pained, thanks to the blow to the head) smile, “Well. You’ve certainly found someone interesting. It’s a bit surprising though, considering how you always did have horrible taste in men, but I must say that he is a definite improvement over… what are you doing?”

        Q ignored the blathering, immediately heading for the bookshelf in order to start pulling out all of the books. He considered tossing a few at Jim’s head, but settled for dropping each and every one of them on the floor with a loud crash. “Searching for the camera your attack dog left here.”

        “Yes, I couldn’t believe that you didn’t find that already. You’re slipping, Richie.”

        Q rewarded Jim with a withering glare, “And you’re a fucking twat.”

        “Do you kiss your secret agent with that mouth, brother dearest?”

        He wrenched the next book out of the shelf with the force he figured was necessary to ripping out someone’s _spine_. “Oh, is he a secret agent? I would never have guessed given how you were _acting_ around him.”

        Because honestly, what the hell had Jim been trying to pull? Putting aside their agreements – which these days were worth the paper they were written on, i.e., absolutely nothing – his brother’s behavior had been even more incomprehensible than usual. It was as if he had been trying to rub in James’s face that he knew what he did, with the accompanying assumption that Q just went around babbling about secret agents to anyone who happened to cross his path.

        Maybe that assumption _was_ the intent, in order to create distrust between them. Q didn’t think it was that simple. If it was, Jim had significantly more information – and significantly more _dangerous_ information – that he could have divulged instead. But instead of taunting Q with that information, Jim had simply sent James away. Why?

        He started slightly when Jim waved a lazy hand at him, pulling him out of his distraction. “Ugh. Do lighten up, baby brother. That martyr attitude gets old very quickly.”

        Q scowled as he reached into the shelf and finally pulled out a camera. As he suspected, it was far smaller than the one he had “caught” Moran with, and looked like it was of fantastic quality. With deliberate slowness, he dropped the device onto the floor, following it quickly with a 1,000-page book on practical robotics. The ensuing sound of the camera being ground into dust made him feel a little better, but not nearly enough. “Why are you here, Jim?”

        “Did you really have to do that?” Jim replied, still looking at where his no doubt outrageously expensive camera used to exist. When Q said nothing, the bastard let out a thoroughly put upon sigh. “I just felt that the circumstances were… significant enough to warrant my attention.”

        “You could have sent an e-mail.”

        “Like we both don’t already know they go straight to spam.”

        He would not apologize that. “Then you shouldn’t have sent me two thousand e-mails of _stupid cat videos_.” Two thousand was probably a conservative estimate because he’d gone into a rage-induced blackout until his inbox was cleared, a process that had taken _hours_. No less than three-quarters of Q-branch had been in tears by the end of the day; the other quarter had immediately applied for transfers to tech support, all of which had been rejected because Q-branch employees were far too impatient to be able to ask, ‘Are you sure you turned on the power? Are you _really_ sure?’ without going into their own rage-induced blackouts.

        Jim was completely unrepentant as well, blinking innocently at him. “But I thought you liked cats? Did you watch the one with the cat diving into the boxes?”

        He sucked in a deep breath, trying to control his twitchy fingers from reaching towards his brother’s neck. “What do you want, Jim?”

        “Someone is tetchy when he is about to get laid.”

        “I’ll show you _tetchy_ , you goddamn-” Q paused as he looked over his brother. On any other day, he would have been throwing Jim out of the nearest window, but instinctively he knew this was no ordinary day. While his observation skills weren’t exactly comparable to, say, a double-o agent’s, he _knew_ Jim, and he could tell that his brother’s obnoxious behavior was just a front for whatever was going on here. The problem, therefore, was that he hadn’t been asking the right questions. “What happened to you?”

        “I thought you would never ask.” Jim’s tone implied otherwise as he sat up, moving far more gingerly than before now that he didn’t have to put on a show. “I had a bit of a run in with the British Government. Don’t worry, it has nothing to do with you.”

        He decided that now wasn’t the time to point out that Jim’s presence here would suggest the exact opposite of what was being said. It also wasn’t the time to bring up the truth, but somehow it slipped out. “That’s not what I was worried about.”

        Jim stared at him, looking disappointed. “Is that the sound of you caring? You should be careful with that. It’ll only get you hurt.”

        He knew that. Of course, he knew that, and it was precisely why he worked so hard _not_ to care about his brother. He didn’t care what crazy plans Jim had going on at the moment. He didn’t care if those crazy plans ended with Jim in a ditch, having his eyeballs eaten by stray animals. He didn’t care, and that was what he was going to keep telling himself until the day one of them died.

        “Then what are you doing here?” he replied tartly, although it was just a cover for his attempts to direct the conversation back to the family psychopath. “I doubt you would have come here just to get my sympathy.”

        At least that was true; Q might have made the mistake of caring more than he should have, but he definitely had no sympathy for Jim’s current state. Honestly, he was of the opinion that somebody knocking Jim around a bit more wouldn’t be remiss, especially since his brother had an extraordinarily high pain tolerance to begin with. Q had always suspected that contributed to Jim’s inability to care about other people. If he couldn’t feel the pain, couldn’t know what it was like to truly suffer, then he certainly wouldn’t understand why hurting other people would matter as much as it did.

        Jim just smiled, one of those especially meaningless smiles that he seemed to specialize in. It was the smile that said, without any question, that the time for honesty was over with. Q rarely saw that look because Jim rarely chose to be honest with him in the first place, and half the time he didn’t even realize that his brother was being honest until he saw that smile. “I just wanted to make sure that the infamous 007 was good enough for my baby brother.”

        _Liar_ was what he should have said. _Is he?_ was what he wanted to say. What came out of his mouth was, “And since when did you care about my health and happiness?” Because as it turned out, Jim was not the only one who failed at being honest.

        “Someone has to look out for you.”

        “Yes, but that someone isn’t you,” he reminded Jim. Last time it had been Jim telling him that, but the same held true in reverse. He hadn’t needed Jim to look out for him in a very long time, and he wasn’t about to start now. Especially since Jim’s idea of “looking out” for a person usually ended with that person jumping into the Thames in a desperate attempt to escape the insanity. “You’re not going to scare him off, are you?”

        Jim shrugged, noncommittal at best. “Only if he becomes a liability.”

        “I don’t think you could manage it.” It was less a warning and more a simple fact. Because not only was James not the kind to be intimidated, but Q was determined that if this was going to end, it would be on their terms, not Jim’s. He was certain that he was not the only one who would make sure of that.

        Not that Jim disagreed, although knowing his brother, he would probably take perverse pleasure in testing that conviction. “Yes, he did seem quite tenacious. Like a bulldog.” Jim’s voice was nothing if not malicious. “Your very own pet guard dog, my, my, we really _are_ projecting now.”

        For the sake of what precious little was left of his sanity, he resolutely ignored that comparison. Not that he could really deny that there was a certain… dangerous quality about both James and Moran that was disturbingly similar, but he would certainly deny with his dying breath that both he and Jim were attracted to the same sorts of people. Because they weren’t, if only due to Jim’s inability to care about people. Certainly, he might show a fondness for Moran, but not in the way Q felt for James. James was important to him, someone he wanted to protect even though he really didn’t have to. Moran, in contrast, was a tool for Jim, one that might have some interest to his brother outside of his admirable ability to prolong death, but if Jim had to step over his henchman’s body to get what he wanted, he would do so without blinking. It was simply how Jim felt about everyone in this world, and that had and always would include Q himself.

        That undeniable truth was what made it so easy for him to say what he did.

        “If you make me choose between you, I will not choose you.” This conviction was less about love and more about common decency. Jim might have been his brother, but James was simply a better person. Even if Q hadn’t cared for James the way he did, he still would have chosen the agent over his brother because while the world could survive without James Bond, the world would be _better_ without Jim Moriarty.

        “I would never ask you to.” And with that, Jim stood and headed for the door, pausing only to ruffle his hair with mock affection as he passed him by. “Well, I must be off then, Richie. Do give my regards to your bulldog.”

        “You’re not staying for dinner?” He didn’t normally question the good things in his life, but in his experience, if it sounded too good to be true, it usually was, especially when it came to Jim.

        Jim paused, looking back at him. “Did you want me to?”

        “No,” he tried not to reply too quickly. He had a feeling that he and James were going to be having a very long conversation when the agent came back, and he sincerely doubted it would go well if Jim was still hanging about, adding colorful commentary to no one’s amusement except his own. “But since when did you give a damn about what I wanted?”

        “True enough. But I have work to do,” Jim said, somehow managing to imply that his work was so much more important than Q’s. “You know, things to steal, places to destroy, people to kill—oh seriously, you _really_ need to lighten up.”

        “One day,” Q said slowly, making sure to enunciate each and every word so as to ensure that Jim knew he was being serious. He even made sure to use his serious face, which was an improvement over his horrified face even if it just made Jim snigger inappropriately. “I will dance on your grave for all the grief you cause me. Seriously, Jim, I will. And it will be _glorious_.”

        Normally, Jim treated any implication that Q would outlive him with blatant skepticism, since they both knew that Jim fully intended on being the one to end his existence. But as if to highlight that this was not normal circumstances, Jim just chuckled darkly and said before he closed the door, “I have no doubt of that, Richie. Of that, I have no doubt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear that I had intended for this chapter to be a _lot_ less serious, but for some reason it just didn’t want to happen like that. The weird thing is that a lot of the dialogue stayed the same, but all of the characters took a darker turn. I honestly don’t know what happened there, except that it’s probably my proclivity towards the dark and angsty doing me in again.
> 
> As for a chapter next week… I really can’t say. It’s supposed to be a long chapter, which would suggest likelihood of delay, but these days it’s becoming impossible for me to predict what my brain wants to do.


	10. Tipping Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“The point at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable.”_

        “Isn’t that your brother?”

        Q sighed as he set down what appeared to be a yo-yo with a _buzzsaw_ in it (as much as he respected and quite honestly adored Major Boothroyd, the man had some increasingly curious ideas for weaponry as the years went by), in part to prevent himself from cutting his hands open on the sharp edges but mostly to stop himself from throwing the thing at James’s head. He knew that he should be more tolerant of questions of the familial nature, but there were some topics that were better left untouched and Jim was most definitely one of them.

        Given the circumstances, James had taken the news about Jim relatively well, considering that Q may have completely and utterly failed to mention his brother’s very existence prior to the arse showing up at his front door. Q would be the first to admit that that had been a fairly significant omission, although he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to have brought up the subject in the first place. It wasn’t like Jim was embarrassing in the “He’s an accountant” or “He likes to do odd things with goats” sort of way; no, if _only_ it had been something that simple and easily explained away. But Jim had made a career out of being not “easily explained away,” and he had not been shy about living up to that reputation during his impromptu meet and greet with the agent.

        The conversation that had followed Jim’s departure did not involve raised voices, but it had definitely crossed the line from uncomfortable to downright tense. Q’s attempts to point out that there was no good way of preparing James for his brother ( _What was I supposed to say? Oh, did I ever mention I have a psychotic older brother who threatens to have me killed on a regular basis? No? Well, he’s coming over for tea tomorrow, so you might want to bring a bulletproof vest and some handcuffs_ ) had fallen flat, and more than once he had honestly thought James would walk out on him.

        Not that he would have blamed him if he did. He wouldn’t have liked it, but he would have refrained (most likely) from destroying James’s credit score if the agent had because he honestly could not blame him. He knew that Jim was not a secret that could easily be accepted. Hell, if James _had_ taken Jim in stride, he would have been forced to formally recommend that James take a refresher course on “How to Recognize Dangerous Criminals who Want to Kill You Dead,” which would not have gone well for anyone.

        But then, maybe it was that experience with lies and betrayal and dangerous criminals that made James more… understanding about this particular omission of the truth. They all had their secrets – even if said secrets didn’t usually have a propensity for dancing across his living room, rubbing its already not inconspicuous existence into everyone’s faces – and in this case, Jim wasn’t even a complete surprise. Q didn’t doubt that James was already suspicious after all of those damned pranks, which while seemingly simple on their face, required both significant technical skills and resources. The kind most ordinary people simply did not have access to.

        Most people laughed it off, of course, thinking it was a mere practical joke. But that was classic Jim Moriarty; the bastard had certainly mastered the art of hiding in plain sight, of creating such spectacles that one didn’t even notice him until he had slit your throat. James would know something about that too, of how the best disguises didn’t require a disguise at all, and would therefore have seen through their superficial simplicity to realize how difficult they were to actually achieve, especially in the heart of MI6. Thus, Q wouldn’t be surprised at all if Jim’s attempts to utterly destroy his reputation had caused James to expect… well, Jim.

        Hopefully, that was all that he had been expecting. At least Jim’s behavior made it easy to justify why Q would want to keep him a secret, without having to explain the whole “internationally renowned terrorist” bit. If all went well, James would never have to find out about how right he was to instinctively want to shoot the man in the head.

        And maybe Jim would want to join a monastery and take a vow of silence too. Needless to say, things never went _that_ well when it came to his life.

        “Q,” James said, in a tone that left no room for argument even from someone as stubbornly argumentative as Q. But Q’s tolerance for questions had reached its limit, a limit that was punishingly low when it came to his brother, so he stubbornly picked up his cup and counted to five before turning to glare at James, ready to _very_ politely remind the agent that not everything in the world had to be about his brother except then his eyes were sliding past the agent to his computer screen, which was depicting-

        His cup crashed onto the floor.

        Distantly, he raised the tally of cups James owed him to seventeen, and the scalding hot tea was soaking into his shoes so maybe he should be moving before he indulged in some first-degree burns, but Jim Moriarty’s face and _name_ was splashed across the news and he was getting arrested for trying to steal the crown jewels and that was his _name_ on the screen and _what the fuck was happening._

        Q had long suffered from nightmares (understandable considering he lived in constant terror of being murdered or humiliated by his own brother), but the worst he had ever dreamed of couldn’t _compare_ to the present moment. It felt rather like having his life fall apart around him, and he had to resist the urge to giggle hysterically because that was _exactly_ what was happening at the moment. Because his brother was being _arrested_ , and James knew that was his brother, and the name he had been _running_ from for his entire adult name was staring at them on his own computer screen, and-

        “Your brother,” James said, with far more calm that Q was certainly capable of at the moment, “is James _Moriarty_.”

        He didn’t reply. He didn’t know how, unable to move or speak or think because his brother was being arrested for trying to steal the bloody crown jewels. (Or not trying. Q had no doubt that if Jim really wanted to steal them, they would have been stolen.)

        “Your brother,” James continued, and Q could tell all too well that the agent was fighting to maintain his composure, “is an internationally terrorist wanted in every civilized country.”

        Q looked at him, swallowing hard. Well, that did away with any delusions he might have had that maybe James had never heard of Jim Moriarty.

        This really was not how he had wanted James to find out about his brother’s extracurricular activities. Granted, he hadn’t wanted James to find out about this at all, hoping desperately that Jim would meet some appropriately messy demise before it came out that yes, he was indeed related to someone whose body count might actually exceed 007’s, and for nowhere as noble a reason. Or any reason, for that matter, since Jim had a tendency of killing people just because. “You’ve met him. He’s sort of an arse.”

        That was sort of an understatement.

        If it had been his goal to cut through the tension with pathetic attempts at humor, he failed miserably. James didn’t even smile, although the fact that he wasn’t reaching for a weapon could be considered a moral victory. “Does M know about this?”

        Always the consummate agent, putting Queen and country before personal problems. Q wasn’t sure if he was jealous or just plain irritated because not everyone could be as perfect as James goddamned Bond. Q might not be here because of patriotic duty and he had certainly never claimed otherwise, but the suggestion that he was a traitor (that he was there only on the command of his _brother_ ) made him more tetchy than he probably had the right to be considering how he was the one with the secrets.

        But then, just because he had his secrets didn’t mean that he deserved to be lumped in the same category as Jim. He might not have the same lofty reasons as 007, but he’d never given any cause for doubt either.

        “Not that it’s any of your business-” he glared, preemptively cutting off any protests the agents might have had, “-but yes. _She_ did, at least. I don’t make it a habit of explaining my family tree to my superior every time there’s turnover, but she might have warned him.” It seemed unlikely though; the previous M had thought that she would be at MI6 until the day she died. And she had been right, although she probably hadn’t expected it to be quite _that_ early.

        James wasn’t so easily placated though. “You should have told him.”

        “No, you mean I should have told you,” he corrected sharply, and James was at least honest enough not to deny that. Not that it made him feel any more forgiving at the moment. Q didn’t understand why he was getting so angry; if the positions had been reversed, if he had found out that James had conveniently forgotten to mention a psychotic family member, he would probably be a bit paranoid as well. But whether or not the agent’s suspicions were justified was not the point. The point was that he wasn’t supposed to be defined by Jim, not anymore. He hadn’t just changed his last name all of those years ago; he had made a life for himself, independent of his brother and their shared past. And that _should have been enough_.

        Except he knew, deep down, that it wasn’t. As much as he wanted otherwise, Jim’s influence wasn’t limited to his past. And it wasn’t just because Jim wouldn’t leave him alone, or that they occasionally shared a cup of tea (at gun point), or that his brother would show up and bring him alcohol to drown his sorrows in. It was because as much as Q tried to deny his familial connections, the truth of their relationship was inescapable.

        “He’s my brother,” Q said to both their surprise, his anger dissipating as quickly as it had come because he was finally admitting to what he had known for so long but what neither of them could ever acknowledge. He had to look away from James now, whose silence was welcome but so confusing because he didn’t deserve this either, the opportunity to explain himself even after everything he had hidden from the man. Although at this point, he wasn’t even sure who he was trying to explain himself _to_. “He looked out for me… took care of me when our parents died. He’s so fucked up, James, we both know that, but when they died, he did everything he could to keep me from ending up the same as him. And he did it even though he didn’t have to.”

        And that was the reason why Q could never just walk away from Jim, even though he had plenty of reasons to. Because Jim had once had the opportunity to walk away from _him_ , to disappear and leave Q to fend for himself. Jim already had quite a lucrative criminal enterprise when their parents had died, and no reason to look out for him. Maybe his brother’s actions would have made more sense, if Jim had at least taken advantage of the situation to try and persuade Q to work with him. Except he hadn’t. Instead, Jim had watched over him just enough to allow him to make his own choices, to decide what he wanted to do for himself. And for all of the threats and taunts and explosive devices they exchanged, Jim had never truly forced him to choose between his brother and the life he had so desperately wanted to make for himself.

        Not until recently, at least. Q stared at the screen replaying Jim’s arrest, over and over again, and wondered exactly how long his brother had been planning this. It would explain so much, and yet nothing at all.

        “So you’re saying that he didn’t want you at MI6, in a position to feed him information?” James’s question wasn’t accusatory; to the contrary, it was almost like the agent was trying to give him the opportunity to confirm that he wasn’t going to betray his trust like so many others before him had.

        He couldn’t help the bitter laugh. Just because Jim had let him make his choices didn’t mean the arse had been completely accepting of it. “He actually went to some lengths to try and keep me out, if you must know.”

        “Such as?” James asked, a touch of skepticism making its grand reappearance. Q actually found it rather reassuring, given that his emotional confessions aside, he had still kept hidden the fact that his brother was – as James had rightfully pointed out – an internationally wanted terrorist. Those sorts of lies often had consequences, whether he intended for them or not.

        “He told M.” _This_ got the agent’s attention, if the strangled and decidedly un-James Bond like sound coming from the mouth of James Bond was any indication. He rewarded James with a small, crooked smile. “You don’t have a monopoly on harassing our superiors in their private homes, you know.”

        Under different circumstances, he would have enjoyed the way James tried desperately to regain his composure. “What did he-?”

        “He told M who he was, who _I_ was, suggested all sorts of dastardly ways I could sabotage MI6 from the inside, and politely pointed out that I was a security risk that it wasn’t worth taking.”

        Or at least that was what he has assumed from his following conversation with M and subsequent screaming match with Jim. Honestly, Q still had no idea why Jim had done it. He sometimes wondered if Jim had told M for this precise reason: to undermine any suggestions that he had joined MI6 for his brother (well, he _had_ , but joining to irritate Jim was not the same as joining to give him information). But if that was the case, Jim had even less reason to give him that way out, although he had learned by now that attempting to apply logic to his brother’s actions was a one-way ticket to the insane asylum.

        He couldn’t claim not to appreciate it. He didn’t think that Jim informing Mallory would have had the same effect on James as Jim informing Mansfield because as much as James respected their current esteemed leader, the level of trust and commitment that was underlined the agent’s relationship with the former M was far deeper. 007’s case file might have been filled with instances where the two of them had ended up on opposite sides of an issue, but he kept coming _back_. That stubborn decision to keep returning after their disagreements (and the occasional shooting attempt) was the best evidence anyone could have of how much Mansfield had mattered to James. And that, in turn, was probably why James was able to put some trust in Q because if she had done it, then there had to be a reason for it.

        “What did she do?” James asked, although they both knew the answer to that. Q was still here, after all.

        “Gave me a raise and extended my hours, and said if I ever betrayed MI6 she would send you after me.” Q paused to let that sink in, before continuing pointedly, “Which was a legitimate threat even then, since you were a human wrecking ball.”

        “I still am,” James replied, sounding quite insulted at the implication that his destructive tendencies had slid over the past years.

        “Don’t remind me,” he muttered, resisting the urge to throw some of those expense reports at the agent in the hope that they might cause grievous bodily harm via paper cuts. But the tension was definitely dying down as James turned back to the computer screen, which was still showing his brother being arrested. It was a shame he couldn’t enjoy it more, since Jim should have been arrested long ago. All the things the bastard had done… and Q knew that Jim was only being arrested because he was permitting it.

        James glanced at him, “You’re not going to help him?”

        “No,” he replied flatly, leaning down to pick up the pieces of his cup. “This is his work. I don’t help him with his work.” Actually, he didn’t help Jim outside of work either, but that was beside the point. He might not be able to walk away, but that didn’t mean he was going to go out of his way either.

        “You don’t help him with his work,” James repeated. “In my experience, the line between work and not work can be very thin.”

        He couldn’t disagree with that, but he shrugged as he straightened. “We have an agreement: work isn’t personal. If I am ever required by my job to go after him, I will. And if I ever get in the way of his work, he won’t hesitate to take me out.”

        “And have you ever tested this agreement?”

        “Not yet.” Q closed his eyes, not eager to imagine the horror that would follow their inevitable collision. “But we both know it’s only a matter of time.”

* * *

        Or not so inevitable, as it turned out.

* * *

        The information that came in during the following days managed to get worse and worse, as it was revealed that Jim was also responsible for the break-ins at the Bank of England and Pentonville Prison. Rumor had it that Jim had some sort of computer code that could bypass all security systems, but Q didn’t put much stock in rumors. The existence of such a code was ridiculous on its face, and as little as Jim respected his work, he knew that his brother wouldn’t be so stupid as to think that he would fall for that kind of fabrication, not when it was so easy to disprove.

        He deliberately did not follow the trial, avoiding it as much as he could considering how it was on every front page. One could not just ignore someone who was in prison for breaking into three of the most secure locations in the country, but Q thought he did a relatively good job. Still, he would be lying if he claimed that he didn’t immediately check on the verdict, even if it was of no surprise. The only question was what was the _point_ , but he wasn’t about to waste his brain cells trying to figure that out, not when Jim would no doubt be showing up at his flat at the most inconvenient moment to let him know.

        Except he hadn’t. In fact, after being found “not guilty” (only in the most technical sense of the term, obviously), Jim Moriarty had simply vanished.

        Q told himself, over and over again, that it wasn’t his problem. But some things were easier said than believed, if his tendency of waking up in a cold sweat was any indication. Sleepless nights quickly became the norm as the weeks ticked by, which combined with James’s own restlessness, made the nights downright excruciating.

        Not that they often spent their nights together (Q was old-fashioned like that, even if they had slipped into a comfortable pattern far more quickly than he had imagined possible), or that he would ever claim to “need” James to get through this, or that he would have traded the agent’s presence for anything. There was something comforting about having someone who… well, he wouldn’t go so far as to say that James understood what he was going through, but at least there was someone else who knew that Jim was something more than a criminal mastermind. That he was human, with impacts on people other than as a headline. It was something he had hidden (denied) for so long that it was somewhat of a relief to not be the only one burdened with that inescapable knowledge.

        But even James couldn’t help him figure out where Jim was or what the bastard was up to. His brother had always been good at hide-and-go-seek, ever since they were kids, and try as he might he could not figure out where Jim had wandered off to. And he did try, even though he tried valiantly to remind himself that this really, _really_ wasn’t his problem, but he had never been good at believing that. That was why he looked, and why in the process of looking, he began to notice a story starting to develop. A life, quietly being established where one did not previously exist.

        He didn’t think much of it, not at first. Jim always had as many cover identities as bank accounts, even if this one seemed quite a bit more elaborate than the usual fare. Yet he had already found so many things that it was easy enough to dismiss as just one more piece of a puzzle that was continuing to expand and practically _contort_ the more he tried to solve it. It was no wonder he overlooked it until two months after the verdict was rendered, when he just happened to notice a newspaper article promising an exclusive on the detective that had testified against Jim at his trial, a tell-all by a name that was suddenly very, very familiar.

        It didn’t take very long from there to put it all together, and Q soon found himself flinging the paper aside to grab for his phone.

* * *

        Q was expecting to be immediately sent to voicemail, as he had been for the past two months, and his uneasiness skyrocketed to stratospheric heights when Jim immediately picked up.

        “You used my name,” he said, not bothering with preamble once he had managed to get over his shock that he was talking to a living human being rather than a machine.

        “It’s not your name,” Jim replied patiently. There was a pause. “Well, it is, but only in the most technical sense.”

        “ _Richard_ Brook, Q snapped back, uninterested in petty social niceties. Not after two months of silence, not after two months of wondering what had happened to him, not after two months of wondering _why_. “Tell me that isn’t a coincidence.”

        “It’s a coincidence,” was the prompt response. “I couldn’t exactly use a name like Mr. Reichenbach, now could I? Too obvious.”

        Fuck. Jim wasn’t even bothering with subtlety now, and the implications of that made his stomach clench in a way he hadn’t felt since he was a child and unable to understand why his parents were so terrified of his older brother. He pushed away the fear, desperate to try and understand as he asked, “What is your end game with this? Are you trying to send a message? Because it’s working, you have my full attention, and-”

        “This isn’t about you,” Jim cut off, his voice low and dangerous. “Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with you.”

        Q knew better than to interrupt at this point, but he wasn’t about to let Jim have the last word either. He waited until the silence had stretched far too long to be comfortable for anyone, before he dared to ask, “What are you doing, Jim?”

        He didn’t need to see Jim to know that his brother was shrugging, knowing that any explanation would go over his head. And Jim would be right. Try as he might, Q didn’t understand what was happening, and he had a feeling that he didn’t want to understand. But he had to try because whatever Jim was trying to do, this was a dangerous game, and he had a feeling that someone was going to end up dead by the end of it. And that someone, in all likelihood, would be his brother. “Every fairytale needs a villain.”

        “What the fuck is that even supposed to mean?!” Q couldn’t contain himself any longer. He knew he was walking a fine line, but that hardly seemed to matter when Jim was sprouting nonsense about fairytales and villains and god knows what else. “This isn’t a fucking story, this is _life_. There aren’t heroes and villains, there’s just _people_ , and-”

        He stops. No. No, there aren’t people, not to Jim. People are boring and uninteresting, and Jim wouldn’t go to such lengths just for anyone. But if there was someone who could make life just a little less boring, Jim would sacrifice anything including his own life in order to chase that momentary thrill.

        He sank into his chair, staring at a headline that would forever be etched into his memory.

        “Oh god,” he whispered, as he realized that he had been going about this all wrong. He’d been thinking about them in the same way he always had, not realizing that his brother had moved on to newer, shinier toys long ago. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? This entire time, you’ve been here because of _him_.”

        “Jealous?” Jim asked, more curious than smug.

        “No,” he shook his head, even though he knew Jim wouldn’t see it. Because he knew he wasn’t important enough for Jim to concern himself with, beyond answering this final call. Still, he waited for Jim to not believe him, to say in that hated sing-song tone “ _You’re lying_ ,” and he closed his eyes when there was nothing forthcoming. “Just… why?”

        “Because he’s interesting,” his brother replied immediately. “And he’s willing to play the game that you’re not.”

        Nobody with an ounce of common sense was willing to play _that_ game, but from what he had heard about Sherlock Holmes, common sense was not high on the detective’s list of priorities. “That’s because he doesn’t understand the consequences.”

        “No, you see, that’s where you’re wrong,” Jim corrected. “He does understand. He just _doesn’t care_.”

        If that was true, it was no surprise Jim was doing this. Q wondered what Jim must have felt when he discovered Mr. Holmes, a man with not only the intelligence to challenge him, but the emotional incapacity to truly play the game with no regard for the consequences. Was the detective the same as his brother, so bored that even the risk of death was worth the high of feeling _alive_ for a change? That risk was what made life worth living, or so Jim had always claimed, but it was a risk that Q had never understood the need to take. Not like this. “I could stop you.” _I should stop you_.

        “You could,” Jim agreed pleasantly. “But we both know you’re not going to. Not without taking some serious risks, given the time. The wheels are in motion. It’ll all be over soon, just you wait.”

        “Over how?” He didn’t know why he was bothering to ask when he had already asked it before. _This isn’t going to end well for anyone, is it?_ Probably not, was what Moran had said, and Q now knew that included Jim too. It was odd. Q had always figured that Jim was more likely to end up dead at his own hand than somebody else’s, but not like this. Not so soon.

        Jim sighed, as if he was asking a particularly tedious question. He probably was. “Just… over. You shouldn’t worry about it, Richie. It’s not your problem.”

        He shook his head again, resisting the urge to bury his head in his arms in both frustration and utter desperation. “That’s not the _point_ , Jim.”

        As always, his words were completely misinterpreted. Q wasn’t surprised. He couldn’t expect his brother to understand that his concern was not for himself, not when Jim disdained being worried about other people. Even though Jim had looked after him during those years after their parents had died, and even though Jim could occasionally show flashes of concerning himself with Q’s welfare, it was the exception rather than the rule. “You’ll be fine, Richie. I did what I could for you, and now it’s time for you to move on.”

        There was a hint of disdain in those words, as if Jim wasn’t sure why he was bothering to object. After all, his brother had already promised that this wouldn’t affect him, except the bastard didn’t seem to realize that dying _would_ affect him too. He certainly didn’t want it to, but it would because he wasn’t an emotionless android like most people seemed to make him out to be. His relationship with Jim was complicated, yes, but he was absolutely certain at that moment that, despite his constant claims to the contrary, he didn’t want the bastard _dead_.

        “That’s not the point,” he repeated, trying to control the rising hysteria because a display of emotions wasn’t going to help his cause. Not with Jim. Nothing turned his brother off like caring.

        “You’ll be fine,” Jim repeated in turn, and god the bastard probably believed it. He honestly didn’t know what to say when the truth was more likely to make Jim despise him all the more for being the same as all of those boring and tedious people he couldn’t stand being around. But he couldn’t hang up either, and he was still struggling for anything that might get through to his brother when Jim said calmly, “I have to go now, Richard.”

        _Richard_. Not Richie, not baby brother, not some ghastly nickname that Q hated with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. _Richard_.

        He knew what was coming. More importantly, he knew that there was nothing he could say or do that would stop it. Jim would keep on chasing that thrill that Q could not offer him, right off the nearest cliff, but still he found himself saying, “You don’t have to do this, you know. You could just leave him be.”

        “You know, you almost sound like you care.” The only way he knew how to describe Jim’s tone was “disappointed.”

        And it was disappointing. He should have been greeting this moment with ecstasy and fanfare, given how much Jim had fucked with his life, trying to ruin his job, his reputation, his relationships, his… _everything_. He tried to remember the ridiculous attempts on his life, the kidnappings, the threats, and the constant feeling in the back of his head that he just wasn’t safe. He tried to remind himself that maybe Jim had looked out for him all those years ago, but he couldn’t spend the rest of his life in debt to a psychopath who didn’t really care about him anyway, except as someone to torment every once in a while.

        He tried and succeeded in remembering all of these things, and then found himself saying, “We can stop this. We can… look, whatever you want, we can do. You want to leave? You want to go somewhere else? We can do this, we can start over, we can….” Q knew it wasn’t enough, that he could – that he _was_ – offering everything he possibly could, and it would still not be enough. It was why it was so easy to offer. “Just stop this, Jim. _Please_.”

        Silence. There wasn’t even the sound of breathing, as Q held his breath as he waited for the answer he knew that was coming. There was nothing, and that had and always would be their problem.

        “That is… kind of you.” Jim’s voice was soft, almost kind, and in a way, apologetic. Perhaps he understood what Q had been willing to give up for him. Perhaps not. It didn’t matter, not anymore. “But I don’t want to stop it.”

        And with that, Jim hung up.

* * *

        Richard Brook’s body was found on the rooftop of St Bartholomew’s Hospital the following day, dead from a bullet through the brain.

* * *

        James found Q sitting in his office, staring at the blank computer monitor.

        “My brother’s dead,” Q said as soon as the agent walked in.

        “I heard.”

        He shrugged, “It’s for the better. I didn’t like him much anyway.”

        It wasn’t a lie. It just wasn’t the truth either, and he couldn’t find the strength to push James away when the agent leaned over to wrap strong arms around him.


	11. Culminating Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“The point at which a force no longer has the capability to continue its form of operations, offense, or defense.”_

        Q was the only one at the funeral. James had offered to come, but Q had turned him down. While he appreciated the offer, there were some things that he had to do alone.

        There were also some things that he shouldn’t have to do in the first place, and going to Jim’s funeral was one of them. Honestly, he wouldn’t have gone at all if it wasn’t for the fact that he had paid for it. He had considered not doing so, after Moran – well, he assumed it was Moran – sent him an e-mail telling him that the funeral arrangements had all been taken care of, although if he could made out a check to the funeral home for an ungodly amount, that would be greatly appreciated, thanks so much.

        Q hadn’t known if he should laugh or cry at that. It was just like Jim, planning for every eventuality yet still sticking him with the bill, a habit that was all the more galling considering how _he_ had a taxable income while Jim probably had _billions_ in illegal funds. He wondered if Jim had done that deliberately, or if his brother had actually thought that it would never come to this. Even if their last phone call had felt like final good-byes, it wouldn’t surprise Q at all if Jim had believed all the way to the end that he would still be the one to emerge from the flaming wreckage known as Jim Moriarty’s Life.

        He hadn’t, obviously. Not that it had prevented him from taking down another person with him.

        Q should probably have been grateful that the collateral damage was so limited. Jim was capable of so much more harm that it was almost… odd how quiet his death had ultimately been. He’d always imagined more explosions or at least a small mountain of freshly minted corpses, but besides the body on the rooftop and the one on the pavement, nothing. It was really quite anticlimactic.

        The funeral too was anticlimactic, which was a given when he was the only one who bothered attending. It didn’t last long since Q wasn’t about to give any long speeches to a non-existent audience about how fantastic his brother was, since that would require lying through his teeth. Thus, before he knew it, he was standing in front of his brother’s tombstone, solemnly informing it, “I’m not actually going to dance on you, you know.”

        The tombstone, unsurprisingly, declined to respond.

        “I should,” he muttered darkly. “I _would_ , if it wasn’t raining. But I’m not going to give you the pleasure of having me die by slipping on the mud. Absolutely not.”

        There was a spectacular lie in there, but as long as there was no one left to contradict him, he was going to continue lying away. He clutched the umbrella tighter, torn between walking away and kicking the tombstone until it toppled over, but had to settle instead for saying, “And did you really have to shoot yourself in the head? Do you know how much extra it costs to get that cleaned up for the funeral? I should have just had you cremated, or let them stick your body in a ditch. Bastard.”

        Jim continued to not respond, on account of being dead. But Q wasn’t anywhere near finished with his litany of complaints that he could now list out to his captive audience. Even if said audience wasn’t very good at listening (but that was nothing new; Jim hadn’t been good at listening either).

        “And you would have deserved it too, after what you did to that detective. You brought all of this on yourself, you know that, right?” he demanded, the question rhetoric even if Jim had been in any position to reply. Of course Jim had brought this on himself; that was the entire _point_ of this little endeavor. If there hadn’t been any stakes, it wouldn’t have been worth doing in the first place. “Besides, it wasn’t my job. It wasn’t my job to save you.”

        That was true, at least, yet still he felt a twinge of regret. Which was not to suggest that Q regretted not saving his brother; he didn’t, not in the least. He knew that he couldn’t have because really, there wasn’t anything left to save. Jim wouldn’t have thanked him if he had, and it wouldn’t have taken long before his brother went careening off in pursuit of that next burst of adrenaline. Because if Jim was willing to die in this endeavor, no amount of intervention would have prevented him from doing just that.

        He did, however, regret not helping Sherlock Holmes, although he hadn’t been in any position to do so by the time he realized what Jim was doing. He should have figured it out earlier, realized that this whole time Jim had returned to London, Q had been a sideshow rather than the main event. But he hadn’t, and by the time he had it had been too late for anyone. The only person who could have stopped what was to come was Jim himself, and as his brother had so frankly pointed out, Jim had no intention of stopping anything. His brother had long since grown bored with this world, and while Q had provided some entertainment value, he had a feeling nobody in the world could have kept Jim interested for long. Even Mr. Holmes, with his extraordinary intellect and even more extraordinary lack of self-preservation skills, had not, which was why he was here. Why _they_ were here.

        He stared at the rain dripping down the plain white stone, on which was engraved a name he did not even recognize.

        _Richard Brook_.

        Kitty Riley had released her exclusive shortly after Richard Brook’s death, apparently unconcerned that her main source had passed away under suspicious circumstances. Q had considered teaching her a lesson or two about trusting mysterious persons with stories that were quite frankly too good to be true, but had decided his efforts would be better spent taking down the identity Jim had created. It took him some time, to pull down the life that Jim had made for Richard Brook. He hadn’t wanted to draw unwanted attention to him regarding that, since the last thing he needed was for MI5 or worse, the _press_ to be knocking at his door. But at least any attempts now to verify Brook’s claims would quickly lead to false trails and dead ends, and it would not take long for the story about the “fake detective” to unravel. As long as someone was looking, anyway.

        He knew it was too little, too late, of course he did. But it was the best he could do, and he hoped it would help restore Mr. Holmes’s reputation before public interest in him faded away. And it would fade, eventually. It always did.

        The spectacle of Sherlock Holmes was not the only thing that was fading; so too was his anger, which was there even if it was largely dispassionate. Because he was discovering with each passing day exactly how difficult it was to be angry with someone who was no longer in any position to care, although he didn’t know what was left in the wake of his ebbing rage. That anger was the real reason why he had come here in the first place, as he’d had so many things he wanted to tell his brother.

        But now that he was here, he felt like there were no words left to say. Everything he had said before felt meaningless and hollow because in the end, Jim simply wasn’t here to take any of his abuse. There were no smug looks or condescending bemusement; anything he felt was futile because it was met by nothing, which in turn made him feel nothing as well.

        “I suppose this is the point where I should say something nice about you, shouldn’t I?” he asked, not sure who he was asking. A part of him still wanted to yell at Jim, but most of him just felt tired. He’d felt tired since he’d heard that Jim was dead, and as everyone around him gossiped about the detective and his actor dupe, only James had known how personal it truly was. “Some eulogy, perhaps? Well, I’m not going to, obviously. You were a real bastard, and the world’s a much better place with you dead.”

        The only response he got was the sound of raindrops hitting his umbrella, and he sighed as he ran a hand through his hair, still in mild disbelief that he was having to do this. Even though it had been several days since, he still… it just didn’t feel real. He still woke up in the middle of the night, expecting to find Jim trying to shove a shoebox with a bomb or a dead kitten through his window. And while there was a definite sense of relief that he didn’t have to worry about that anymore (well, the dead kittens, anyway), there was also an emptiness that he didn’t like and more importantly, didn’t want. Especially since….

        “And so am I,” he said quietly. “But… you already knew that, didn’t you?”

        Q wasn’t delusional though, to think that would have even factored into Jim’s decision in the slightest. Jim had acted because that was what he had wanted. That was all there was to it. But Q also wasn’t delusional enough to think that Jim wasn’t completely unaware that as a result of his actions, Q’s existence would be far better. He would be able to focus on work, on his relationships, on not having to hide an essential part of him every waking moment of his life. He could breathe easier, live freer. It was everything he had always wanted and Jim had _given_ it to him, even if it was only a side effect of the bastard’s selfishness.

        And it _was_ selfish, what Jim had done. It was so goddamn _selfish_ , and he shouldn’t have been surprised by it but _still_ ….

        “Damnit, Jim,” he whispered. “I just… I….”

        He had promised himself long ago that he would never cry over his brother, and he was damned if he was going to break that promise, especially when all of this was Jim’s own bloody fault to begin with. The rain would have to suffice, although it would be a horrible joke to suggest that the world was crying for his brother. The only reason why the world would weep for Jim’s passing would be to weep in joy, and he couldn’t help but let out a soft, choked laugh as he watched the rain drip down the gravestone for a man he did not know and never really would.

        “I don’t know what else there is to say,” he finally had to admit quietly, his hands tightening around the umbrella handle. “I honestly don’t think there is anything left to say between the two of us.”

        Q waited, of course, in case something inside him wanted to prove that sentiment wrong. But Jim would have been proud because nothing did, and so without another word, he turned and walked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, but there wasn’t much point in dragging things out. It was supposed to be longer because Q was going to have more to say, except he didn’t. There was also supposed to be a subsequent scene between Q and Bond, a draft of which is up on my Tumblr, for anyone who might be interested.


	12. Positive Ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“The possibility of taking advantage of a new security environment to create conditions for long-term peace.”_

        Q was woken up by the insistent buzzing of his doorbell.

        He attempted, at first, to ignore it, in the hope that whoever it was would go away when there was no response. When that simply resulted in more buzzing, he began to contemplate if it would be an abuse of power to have a double-o agent sent to his flat to brutally murder whoever was at his door.

        Some people might have considered that reaction extreme, particularly when it was three in the afternoon, but Q was not one of those people. Sleep was precious and not to be undervalued, especially after pulling three all-nighters in a row. It would have been four if not for Tanner’s and Eve’s intervention, which consisted of Tanner running interference with M while Eve personally manhandled him out of Q-branch and back to his flat ( _literally_ manhandled; he wasn’t looking forward to explaining the bruising to James when the agent got back from his current mission). He had spent two minutes sulking mightily before passing out, a condition he would very much like to return to if not for the continued buzzing of his doorbell.

        After scientifically demonstrating that no, putting a pillow over his head would _not_ muffle the sound enough for him to sleep, Q pushed himself up with a groan and much protestation from his abused limbs. It then took him a truly comical amount of time to get off the bed, by which point he dearly hoped that his assailant’s finger had fallen off from overexertion as the damn doorbell had _not stopped ringing_.

        Despite his semi-comatose state, Q still had enough sense to check his security cameras rather than go straight to his door to welcome his visitor with a well-aimed paring knife. All of his homicidal tendencies (of which there were many) were replaced by confusion, however, when he found himself staring at a non-descript man wearing a suit and holding an umbrella, a large suitcase at his side. Knowing his luck, said suitcase was probably filled with bombs or poisonous spiders or _Bibles_ , possibly all three.

        Except that Bible salesman, even the most zealous of them, did not have _this_ level of patience. And no Bible salesman he’d had the misfortune of stumbling across had ever looked directly at what was supposed to be a hidden camera, with an expression that clearly conveyed: _I know you are in there, so open the door before I take extreme measures to force you to_. It was a look that Q was painfully familiar with because Jim had delighted in that expression, except that one of the side benefits of Jim being a corpse was that he was supposed to be free of that look for good.

        Apparently the universe had other plans though.

        Quite reasonably, Q automatically moved to activate his defensive traps, which on Jim’s advice were far more lethal than they used to be. But as if once again reading his mind, the man turned, moving away just enough so that Q could see that behind him was a young girl clutching a seal doll. He froze. Any trap he activated would most certainly involve her, and while Q had little fondness for children, even he balked at murdering them.

        He flinched as the doorbell rang again. The man’s expression was placid, but Q could tell that he was quickly losing patience by the way he was tapping his umbrella against the ground. Even though every shred of common sense he possessed shrieked that this was a Very Bad Idea, Q found himself moving towards the door. He didn’t know if it was the child (probably not – even terrorists could pick up children from an orphanage… or just create some) or that foreboding sense that doing otherwise would just make everything worse, but either way he was opening the door and asking, “Hello?”

        Q wanted to take some perverse pleasure from the way the man’s nose wrinkled at his no doubt deadly morning breath. The pleasure was tempered by the way his head felt stuffed with cotton balls due to the grogginess that accompanied too much sleep after too much time lacking in it. Not to mention that the stranger’s immaculately crisp suit was making him rather self-conscious of his rumpled appearance, suddenly all too aware that he was still wearing yesterday’s (and the day before… and the day before that too) clothing and his hair so resembled a bird’s nest that the only reason why it wasn’t infested with sentient life was because he had been indoors. “Can I help you?”

        “I do believe you can,” the man said with a smile that was so fake that Q was already starting to regret his decision to open the door. He regretted it even more when the man continued, in a tone that was so oily it made his skin crawl, “I have someone I would like to introduce you to.”

        He stepped aside so that Q could get a better look at the little girl. She was scowling at him. Q felt so confused. It wasn’t like he had offered her candy or a ride in his van; he had done nothing to warrant her glaring, although there was something oddly familiar about her expression, something darkly dangerous and- “This is your niece.”

        Q’s brain promptly short-circuited.

        He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again, and a sound that was either a word or the gurgle of a dying animal eventually emerged, “… what.”

        “Your niece,” the man repeated, and there was a smugness about his expression that would have been infuriating if Q wasn’t busy being completely traumatized. “As you already know, her father… passed away recently, and as you are the closest relative she has, you are being given custody of her well-being.”

        Q stared. And stared. And stared some more, before again asking in a voice three times higher than his usual pitch, “… what?”

        The man sighed, not bothering to hide his exasperation at Q’s apparent dullness as he suggested, “Perhaps I should give you a moment to collect yourself?”

        It wasn’t a question so much as a pointed rebuke. His only response was an especially plaintive, “I don’t understand.”

        The suited man graced him with a truly disapproving look, “That much is obvious.”

        Under normal circumstances, that look on the face of someone who had _no right to judge him_ would have been enough to at least snap him back to his senses, if not attempt to make sure that expression never crossed the bastard’s face again by carefully placing his teeth around a certain thick neck. However, normal circumstances did not usually involve his being informed about previously unknown relatives, let alone _Jim’s secret love child_ , so he thought he could be forgiven for staring and sputtering and in general not reacting appropriately, “I… I don’t… she…?”

        Perhaps sensing that they were getting closer to a breakthrough, or at least a slightly less one-sided conversation, the man decided to switch tactics and attempt a spot of empathy. “I realize this must come as quite a shock,” the man said in what was probably supposed to be a soothing tone, although it didn’t work very well when he didn’t sound like he meant it at all, “but we do have conclusory DNA evidence, if that is what is necessary for you to accept her claims.”

        “They’re not my claims,” the girl muttered, clutching the seal doll tighter.

        She wrinkled her nose at the indulgent look she was given, which was mildly better than the look Q had received only a few moments prior. But like all smart children, she knew when an adult was being condescending, although she didn’t say anything more as the man turned back to Q. However, he was too busy staring at the girl to provide any level of coherence because the way she had wrinkled her nose was exactly like Jim used to when something particularly distasteful came his way, like rainbows and kittens and displays of public affection and… children. _Children._

        Jim had always vowed to never reproduce, a proposition Q had whole-heartedly agreed with because he didn’t think the world could survive the existence of another Moriarty. He’d made sure not to tell Jim that because then his brother would definitely breed for the sole purpose of spiting him, but apparently his relief must have somehow made itself known because there was a child standing before him. _Jim’s_ child, apparently.

        There were a lot of things that were… confusing about this concept, one of which was… _how_. Putting aside Jim’s personal loathing for children, Jim had never been one for intimacy, and last Q checked intimacy was generally required for making-a-child purposes, at least for a little while. Granted, this was probably an unimportant point to focus on, given that conclusive evidence to the contrary was currently standing before him, but just the thought of Jim engaging in something as pedestrian as sex-

        Q’s brain immediately shut down again in a desperate attempt at self-preservation.

        Even through all of this personal chaos and trauma, the one thing Q did not doubt was that this was indeed Jim’s… daughter. Her looks reminded him sharply of his brother, but that meant nothing; Jim was perfectly capable of dedicating countless hours to searching for the perfect look-alike, it if meant even a few hours of entertainment. Hell, a part of him was just waiting for Jim to pop out of the ground yelling ‘Surprise!’ except that Jim was dead and rather incapable of doing such childish things. Besides, his brother wouldn’t play a joke like this, not when it would be so easy for Q to prove him wrong through DNA testing (he still had a few samples of Jim’s genetic material laying around, after all).

        So no, it was not about the looks. Rather, it was… well, it wasn’t that she seemed dangerous, especially not when clutching a slightly ragged doll, but there was something about her that conveyed how very… unimpressed she was with all of the people around her. It might have been a child thing (it wasn’t like Q had much experience with her species), but it was so very much like Jim before he had discovered that he could act on that sentiment that Q nearly recoiled back from her.

        Perhaps the only reason why he did not was because he didn’t want to be single-handedly responsible for her descent into psychopathic villainy due to low self-esteem issues. However, the well-suited man apparently did not share Q’s discretion as he asked abruptly, “Do you not want her?”

        Q turned sharply to stare. He wasn’t the most compassionate of persons, a side effect of having grown up with Jim Moriarty, but he liked to think that even he was not this callous. The question was mild and made no attempt to guilt him, which was precisely why it was so horrible. One would have thought by the matter-of-fact and impersonal tone that they were discussing the location of the nearest Pret A Manger, not whether a little girl’s only remaining family would take her in or leave her to the government to deal with.

        In a demonstration of how little caring and empathy a human being could possess – god, this man would have given Jim a run for his money – the well-suited man continued simply, “If you do not want her, she will be placed at a suitable care facility until-”

        “I cannot believe we’re even having this conversation.”

        And truly, he couldn’t. Oh, he could think of _lots_ of reasons why he shouldn’t be responsible for a child, given his work hours, the dangers associated with his job, the dangers associated with his _boyfriend_ , and the fact that he couldn’t even keep a bloody goldfish alive, but those reasons concerned logistics, not the primary question of whether or not he was going to take her in. Because of course he was. Of course he would not do anything otherwise.

        He noticed the girl staring up at him, no longer glowering but slightly… he didn’t want to say hopeful because “hope” was not an expression Jim had ever indulged in, except when he was loudly proclaiming his hope that all stupid people – i.e., 99.5% of the human population – would die gory, horrific deaths. It was suddenly painfully obvious that the girl had expected him to reject her, to make her someone else’s problem. He wondered if that was how she had been treated for all of her life… well, he didn’t need to wonder. If it was Jim, that would almost certainly have been how he had treated her. Even when Jim had been his de facto guardian, it wasn’t like he had seen much of his brother except in the form of checks for continued food and shelter. He’d been older then, at least, old enough to know that the lack of presence was a benefit rather than a detriment. She didn’t have that advantage.

        Q wondered vaguely if there was a mother, although he had a feeling he knew the answer to that already. Jim didn’t like loose ends. That did beg the question of why the girl was still alive, but maybe even Jim balked at killing babies (doubtful; even if he hadn’t followed Jim’s career closely, he’d seen the reports, including the São Paulo hospital incident) or his brother felt some lingering responsibility for the welfare of those who shared (however involuntarily) his DNA. Biology didn’t mean much to Jim, but apparently it was enough to keep this girl alive.

        It would neatly explain his continued existence, as well.

        It didn’t, of course, mean anything to the suited man, who just stared at him as if he didn’t understand why Q was so upset. Maybe he didn’t. But he must have eventually come to the conclusion that Q was in fact agreeing to take the girl in, and so he pulled out a notebook as he said, “Very good. There will, of course, be an issue of money.”

        Q glared back, not liking how the word “money” was being held out like it was some type of _incentive_. “What of it?”

        “There is a lot of money,” the man replied simply as he consulted his notebook. After a moment of exaggerated concentration, he looked back up at Q with a sickly smile. “Well, there is a fair amount that the government has not seized as illegal funds. And of course, there are other taxes that will need to be paid as well, but you know how that is.”

        Yes, but he would honestly be surprised if this man knew anything of taxes, except how to collect them. In any case, “I don’t need your money.”

        “It’s not my money,” the man said with exaggerated patience. “It’s her’s. Entrusted to you, of course, if you agree to take her in.”

        “I don’t need her money either,” he snapped, which was true because making explosive objects for the government paid very well, as a matter of fact, and it wasn’t like he’d ever had much time to spend any of it. Besides, the thought of taking money from this man – even if it was technically Jim’s money – when it was being offered as some sort of… bribe, made him want to wash himself clean. He did not appreciate the offer, and he especially did not appreciate it in front of the girl, as if she was some sort of commodity. Q turned towards her, who had been looking between him and the suited man like she was watching a ping pong match, and opened the door in what he hoped was a welcoming gesture. “Come along…” he hesitated, abruptly realizing that he did not actually know her name.

        Sensing his difficulty, the man supplied with just the barest hint of self-satisfaction, “Richelle. Her name is Richelle.”

        It took every ounce of self-control not to start banging his head against the doorframe or cursing his brother right then and there because he had _no_ doubt who had come up with that name. “You have got to be joking,” he said, already knowing that he was about to be sorely disappointed.

        “I assure you, Mr. Mori… I’m sorry, Mr. _Coulter_ ,” the man apologized without a shred of sincerity, and a great deal of smugness as the girl looked confused. “In any case, I do not joke.”

        _That_ , he had no doubt of. He just barely managed to swallow a nasty reply, instead looking over at the girl and promptly choking on her name. “Rich… elle. We should be sending this nice man on his way.” He made clear by his tone that the suited man was not in fact very nice at all, and judging from how quickly she slipped past him into his flat, she clearly agreed with his assessment.

        The suited man, in turn, did not look very offended by how quickly the child had fled from him. He snapped the notebook shut before slowly replacing it in his pocket, not bothering to even acknowledge Q’s rather pitiful struggles with the suitcase as he said, “Very good, Mr. Coulter. I must say, it was very nice to meet you.”

        “I can’t say the same about you,” he replied once he had caught his breath from moving the suitcase the necessary three feet from the hallway to his flat. Either he was getting out of shape or Richelle liked to collect _bricks_. But even though he felt, both physically and mentally, like he had been run over by a steamroller, he had to get in that last pointed remark. There was just something… off about the man, something Q instinctively did not like. The man reminded him of Jim, in that arrogant, holier-than-thou sort of way that made one feel like they were only being permitted to breathe through sheer benevolence.

        “That’s a shame,” the man said, still not looking very offended. “I hope to be seeing you around.”

        Q knew a threat when he heard one, but he was not in the business of being intimidated by men in expensive suits. He spent most of his life surrounded by men in expensive suits and a delightful proclivity for shooting people in the name of Queen and country, and this man was nothing compared to those who risked life, limb, and their humanity on a daily basis. “I think not.”

        Thinking that a clear enough answer, he started to shut the door, but was stopped by an umbrella being placed in the way of the door. He didn’t have any qualms about slamming the door onto the umbrella, but he had a strong suspicion that doing so would be more likely to destroy his door rather than the umbrella. “Just one more question, if I may.”

        “You may not,” he muttered, but it wasn’t like he was being given a choice.

        “You never saw your brother’s body, did you?”

        Q stared, not sure where the hell _that_ question had come from. He hoped vaguely that Richelle wasn’t listening into this conversation because not only was it a discussion about her father’s _corpse_ , there was about to be an influx of R-rated curse words if the man did not leave quickly. “I don’t see how that is any of your business.”

        “Call it idle curiosity.”

        “I have a feeling that with you, sir, nothing is asked out of idle curiosity,” he replied coldly, careful to keep his voice steady even if he could do nothing about how tense he sounded. Because he hadn’t, obviously. He’d paid the exorbitant amount necessary to clean up the bullet hole in Jim’s head, but despite his claims in the past, he’d had no interest in staring down at his brother’s corpse once it actually became a corpse. The funeral had been strictly closed casket, and the only reason why he would have it dug up would be to yell at Jim and utilize his head as a football. He had to settle for using his foot to push the umbrella out of the way, no longer bothering with subtlety as he politely inquired, “Now, is there anything else I can do for you? Please note that this question is being asked for the sake of common decency only, as I have no real intention of doing anything.”

        The indulgent smile was making its grand reappearance, not having realized it had worn out its welcome the first time around. “No, that is all. Although I really must thank you for all of your hard work regarding Mr. Brook.”

        By this point, nothing the man said could shock him, and this was no exception. He refused to acknowledge that last sentence at all, grabbing hold of the door as he suggested, “If that is all, you should get going.”

        “That is all,” the man confirmed, inclining his head ever so slightly in acknowledgment. “Except… I know how hard it is to lose a family member, difficult as that person may be to interact with. I am truly sorry for your loss.”

        “Don’t be,” he replied flatly, and slammed the door in the man’s face.

* * *

        For a long while, Q just watched Richelle sit on the sofa, staring without any real interest at her new surroundings. She knew, obviously, that he was watching her, but didn’t acknowledge him until he gingerly sat down next to her, careful to keep a respectable distance between them.

        He had never been good with children. He had never thought he would need to, having a job that kept him well out of the hands of their tiny ilk and having no interest of his own in reproducing. Maybe he should have looked up on-line suggestions for how to start a conversation with previously unknown relatives, but he settled instead for saying, “I’m your… uncle.”

        The sheer amount of panic caused by saying the words out loud would have amused everyone except him. And apparently Richelle, who with obvious reluctance turned to look at him. “That’s what the man said.”

        Q didn’t know what the man had told her before dumping her at his flat, but he had a feeling that it didn’t amount to very much. “Yes, well… your father was my older brother.”

        “Oh.” She looked away from him, fiddling with her doll before asking abruptly, “He didn’t tell you about me, did he?”

        That was an understatement. “No, he did not.” Q wondered if maybe he should have figured out a way to lie or at the very least soften the blow, but again, he had _never_ been good with children. He had also never seen the point of lying when everyone knew the truth already, and from what he had seen of the girl, Richelle was not stupid. She might have been young, but when one was Jim Moriarty’s child, one probably had to learn how to grow up fast.

        After another awkward silence, in which she studiously ignored him and he struggled (and failed) to come up with coherent sentences, she asked, “Did you know him well?” She seemed to curl into herself ever so slightly when he stared at her, as if embarrassed to be asking the question. “It’s just that… I… he never really came to see me.”

        _Bastard_ , he raged silently at Jim, not sure why he was so angry when it was obvious that Jim would have neglected his own child. What he said, however, was, “I don’t think anyone really knew him well, Richelle. Least of all me.”

        It wasn’t a very satisfactory answer, or a very good one. He could have lied, of course. He could have told her that Jim could be a… decent person at times (as good a liar as he was, even he would have trouble selling anything more laudatory than that), or at least an interesting one. He could have told her that there were times where Jim seemed to care, few and rare as those times were, or he could have told her that frankly her father should have kicked the bucket a long time ago. There were truths, or at least facets of it, in each of those “could haves,” but none of those seemed complete.

        Jim Moriarty was a complicated person, with an easy laugh and unpredictable whims. Q hadn’t liked him very much, but brotherhood wasn’t apparently about liking. It was about understanding, and Q had for so long tried to understand his brother. But at a certain point, he’d had to stop because knowing that much had terrified him. Because there were things he understood, like the mind-numbing boredom of a world that sometimes seemed too _tiny_ to be worth living in, and the desperate lengths one could go to escape that. He’d never had it as badly as Jim did, not nearly so, but… sometimes.

        Sometimes, he understood exactly why his brother had gone up to that rooftop and put a bullet through his head.

        And as he stared at the girl, who reminded him so oddly of Jim and yet not, he wondered if he would have to figure out a way to prevent her from ending up in the same exact place.

        He would be the first to admit that he wasn’t exactly off to a stellar start, which might have explained his slightly pathetic look as he waited for her to say something. Instead, all she said was another quiet “Oh” before lapsing back into silence, forcing him to search for the words he never imagined he would have to say because he never imagined he would be in this situation. Of all the things his brother could do to him, it turned out dying wasn’t the worst of it.

        Well, not worst. Richelle, while a shock, was not… she wasn’t a bad development. He was confused and worried and honestly still a bit traumatized by what was happening, but she was Jim’s. He wouldn’t suggest that she was a… chance at getting things right this time because he’d meant it when he said that it wasn’t his job to save his brother. But just as Jim had recognized when it came to him, he now recognized that he had the opportunity to make things _better_ for her, and that wasn’t something he could take lightly.

        He was still struggling to come up with something coherent when she finally looked over at him again and asked, “So I’m going to live with you then?”

        She didn’t sound particularly excited by the prospect, which Q didn’t mind because he probably would have felt the same way if he had been dragged from his life to go live with someone he didn’t know. He peered at her, wondering again where she had been all of these years. Considering that she was here and that her father was Jim, her mother was almost certainly out of the picture. But Jim obviously hadn’t taken care of her either, and he couldn’t imagine her being nearly this… normal if she had been raised by Jim’s merry henchmen. It was more likely that she had been at a school, probably a year-round one, with Jim footing the bill but doing little else in the way of paternal responsibilities.

        “If that is what you want,” he replied carefully, not sure if she actually wanted anything to do with him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her, but if she would be happier at her school, who was he to take that away from her? But apparently it was not so simple as that as her expression went carefully blank, forcing him to quickly add, “I would be happy to have you here, of course. I just… I don’t want to take you away from your friends, and-”

        “I didn’t have any,” she said. “They thought I was a freak, staying at the school all of the time, with no one ever coming to visit me. No mother, no father, no… nothing.”

        She closed her eyes, although she didn’t cry. Maybe she was too used to this by now. Before he could think better of it, he reached over to put his hands on her shoulders in what he hoped was a comforting gesture, wondering if he should pull her close. He had never been good at being touchy-feely, mostly out of necessity from growing up with Jim because from an early age, his brother’s idea of physical contact usually involved a pair of sharp knives. And that discomfort had carried onto his adult life, such that he was still uncomfortable interacting with strangers beyond the obligatory handshake.

        Except this wasn’t just any stranger. This was Jim’s daughter. His _niece_. And she was obviously hurting, having been pushed away by a father who didn’t want her and peers who didn’t understand what it was like to be so dependent on a man who was simply incapable of love. He didn’t want that to be all she had, and while he knew that he could never be an adequate replacement after likely years of neglect, he had to _try_. For her, for himself, for Jim.

        So he stopped wondering, stopped thinking, and pulled her into a hug. She stiffened slightly, confused by the gesture, before tentatively relaxing into his embrace as he said, with absolute sincerity, “I will be happy to have you here, Richelle.”

        “… thanks,” she replied, her voice soft and almost full of wonder, as if she couldn’t believe this was happening either. Unfortunately, the moment was slightly ruined when she continued, “Will the man coming through the window also be happy with that?”

        Q whipped around to find James staring at him (or more accurately, past him), expression an unholy combination of bewilderment and terror. Apparently Q was not the only one who didn’t know how to react to children, but he forced a smile onto his face as he said, “James? I… err… have something I need to tell you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I chose “Richelle” because it came up fairly often when I was researching (i.e., Googling) the feminine version of “Richard.” Jim isn’t exactly subtle, to say the least.


	13. Peacemaking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“The process of diplomacy, mediation, negotiation, or other forms of peaceful settlements that arrange an end to a dispute and resolves issues that led to it.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for the end of Sherlock season three, episode three, if you haven’t watched that yet.

        “You’re doing it wrong.”

        James shot him a flat look, before asking with such copious amounts of sarcasm that the question was no longer a question, “There’s a wrong way to put candles on a cake.”

        Q, because he was the mature adult human being of this relationship, ignored the non-question and made a grab for the candles, only to be thwarted by the brute of a partner he’d been foolish enough to choose. “There _shouldn’t_ be, but somehow you’re managing it. You truly are a marvel, 007.”

        “Sarcasm will get you nowhere, Q.” Before Q could bring up what _else_ would be going nowhere (hint: it involved their _sex life_ ), James continued, “Besides, we all agreed that you were not allowed near the cake after the frosting incident.”

        “That was _months_ ago,” he protested, making another swipe for the candles and failing yet again as James held them just out of his reach. The  _bastard_. “Besides, the principle behind it was sound. I didn’t hear _you_ protesting, in any case.”

        “If you need Uncle James to stop you from implementing bad ideas, then we’re all in trouble,” Richelle pointed out from where she sat at the kitchen table, watching her two guardians bicker. It was not an unusual occurrence. “Besides, he’s right. You _did_ promise.”

        Q glared at her, while James took advantage of his momentary distraction to complete his task of desecrating the cake. “Traitor.”

        She hummed, a sound eerily reminiscent of Jim when he was trying to drive Q crazy. It used to make him flinch just slightly, like having his brother back in the room again, but he had become used to it over the last few years. Richelle wasn’t Jim, as much as she sometimes looked like him. She was herself, and that was fine. _They_ were fine. “I’m just pointing out what happened, Uncle Richard. I mean, you don’t want to spend the entire weekend cleaning the kitchen like last-”

        “Yes, thank you very much for that, Richelle,” he cut off as James smirked at him. He responded by throwing the towel into his partner’s face, the loving gesture just unexpected enough for James not to react in time. Either that or the agent was humoring him, as they both knew who was the one who built and distributed the tech. Not that Q would ever be so petty (or unprofessional) as to retaliate by sending James off on a dangerous mission with a non-functioning weapon, but there were other ways of making his displeasure known. Like the time he had put sparkly Hello Kitty stickers on 007’s no longer quite standard-issue radio transmitter. For the oddest reason James hadn’t believed him when he said that Richelle had got into his things, even though he had bribed his niece with enough chocolate to rot her teeth (he had tried offering her a new seal doll, but Richelle was already proving to be a terribly proficient negotiator) to back up his claims.

        At times like that, it occurred to Q that maybe he should be trying to set a better example for her, really he should. It didn’t help that he knew he wasn’t cut out for this parenting business, and neither was James. They were both used to having been on their own for most of their lives, and had developed bad habits like working for days without sleep (or food, in his case) and failing to inform people that they were not _actually_ dead, thank you very much. It had already been difficult changing their patterns to accommodate each other when they had started their relationship, despite working together and having such intimate knowledge of what sacrifices intelligence work required. The level of trust that was needed to truly be together was something neither was used to, and they’d both had secrets that were not easily revealed.

        Adding a child to that mix had been near impossible, although once again James had taken the news of Richelle’s existence rather well. It probably helped that Q was still himself in a mild state of shock, making it difficult for James to get too upset over another previously unknown family member. Q still wouldn’t have blamed the agent for deciding that this was too much to handle, but James Bond had always been loyal to a fault. It was one of the things he so admired about the man, while at the same time worrying that it would be the death of 007. (Not that it ever would, as long as he had anything to do about it.)

        So James had stayed, moving in not too long after. Together, they had done their best to raise Q’s niece, and honestly Q didn’t know what would have happened if he’d had to do it on his own. James was good with people – it would be difficult to do his job if he wasn’t – in a way that Q most definitely could not match, and his partner had settled into an easy rhythm with Richelle quite early on. Q and Richelle, in contrast, had spent a great deal of time during their early weeks dancing around each other, unsure of what barriers there were and where they were located. It reached the point where Q took to being slumped in the toilets (decidedly preferable to the psych department), wailing about how he was screwing up Richelle’s life and how she was definitely going to end up as a terrorist or worse, a _politician_ because he didn’t know how to properly raise a child.

        “Q, _nobody_ knows how to raise a child,” Tanner had reminded him after Eve had sent the Chief of Staff over to deal with his seventeenth mental breakdown. “You just muddle through it the best you can, and that’s all you can really do.”

        It wasn’t necessarily the most useful advice, but it was the most honest. As Q settled down into two unfamiliar roles – parenthood and partnership – some things began to change, like Q relinquishing just enough control over his department so that he could get home at a decent hour to help Richelle with her schoolwork (not that she really needed it, but it made him feel useful) and let her tell him about her day. Some things didn’t change though, like terrorists creating problems on Christmas day because terrorists didn’t care that he had a family to look out for. And that was what they were, really. Family.

        The concept had taken time for him to get used to because family… well, family in his mind wasn’t necessarily a _good_ thing. He’d loved his parents, of course, but there was always a distance created by their knowledge that something was not quite right about their oldest son. After they had died, his only family had been Jim, someone who was there whether he liked it or not – and it was usually not. Then, family often felt like an obligation, especially considering the fear he carried with him for so long about what his brother would be doing next. He’d loved Jim too, loved him as only a brother could, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t truly terrified of the man. Jim knew how to destroy him, to burn the heart right out of him, and sometimes he did not know what (if anything) stopped his brother from doing just that.

        In contrast, the family he had now was not one that he had been born into; it was one that he had made for himself. It wasn’t the most conventional of families, and it wasn’t even remotely normal because normal wasn’t a word in the vocabulary of MI6’s quartermaster and England’s most notorious double-o agent (it said a lot about their family when the most normal person was the daughter of a deceased, internationally wanted terrorist, although luckily Jim’s penchant for skinning people was _not_ genetic – he had always suspected that Moran was a bad influence on his brother). But it was more far normal than the one he’d once had because at least they weren’t trying to kill each other or ruin each other’s lives.

        And he wouldn’t have given it up for anything in the world, especially when he picked up the _absolutely ruined_ cake and James wrapped strong arms around his waist. It made it difficult to walk but he didn’t care, the warmth of his partner at his back as they made their way to the table where Richelle was trying (and failing) to conceal her excitement.

        Because his niece had missed out on so many milestones, like birthdays and Christmas and other things he was reliably informed normal people celebrated, Q and James had decided to compensate by celebrating… other things. It was probably unnecessary, and she was no doubt reaching the age where she would be properly embarrassed by their antics and spend most of her time locked in her room composing angsty poetry or smut about fictional characters, but until that point he was going to make the most of the time they had.

        He somehow managed to set the cake down rather than dropping it, straightening with James’s comforting presence behind him. He imagined the look on his face was disgustingly soppy, and no doubt James’s was as well as Richelle looked up at them with a happiness he hadn’t thought possible when she had first shown up, not able to trust anyone in this world.

        “Happy two-year anniversary,” Q said, still unable to believe that this was his life, that it had been two years since she had arrived at his front door with a suitcase. It had been far from perfect, and it would continue to not be perfect as the years went on, but that didn’t matter now. He ruffled her hair, a motion he had hated when Jim did it but she still adored, and continued, “I’m glad you’re here, Richelle.”

        “I am too,” she said with a soft, sincere smile, before blowing out the candles.

* * *

        Q woke up to darkness and a truly exquisite pain in his head.

        “Oh,” he said, and the word was muffled by the gag in his mouth. “Buggering _shit._ ”

        “Uncle Richard?” Richelle asked quietly, and he felt like the ground had dropped out from beneath him. She didn’t sound very scared – which was more than made up by his own fear because she wasn’t supposed to be involved, she was _never_ supposed to be involved, but apparently his intent mattered little to the realities of this world – but more irritated as she informed him, “There is a man with a gun. He is being very rude.”

        Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, _shit_. Normally, Q would have been more concerned about what James would say about his getting kidnapped _again_ , even if he tried to tell his partner that it didn’t happen quite as often as the agent made it out to be. After all, he had managed to rescue himself eighty-three percent of the time, which wasn’t bad considering how he was still being underestimated as a skinny, helpless boffin who would scream and faint at the mere sight of blood. However, normally his niece _would not be here with him_ , and the thought of what people were capable of almost made him want to return to the darkness, except there was no way he was going to be leaving Richelle to deal with this alone.

        “Is he awake?” an unfamiliar voice asked. He heard and felt movement, as he could not see anything, and closed his eyes quickly as the blindfold was taken off. Q waited until the gag was removed as well before slowly opening his eyes, trying not to visibly wince at the harsh, artificial light.

        The room they were in was small, with no windows and only one exit. There were four men, one of which indeed had a gun. He did not aim it at Richelle, but considering his close proximity to her, the intent was clear.

        Q swallowed, automatically ready to start with the ground rules but voice dying as Richelle was pushed forward towards him. She quickly went to his side, although she did not move behind the chair he was inconveniently tied to. Q wasn’t sure if he should be admiring her courage or yelling at her to hide herself because this wasn’t her problem, this wasn’t her fight, and she _shouldn’t be here_.

        The problem, of course, was that she was here, and that changed the ground rules considerably.

        The man who he assumed was The Boss – he certainly was the largest, most confident, and most stupid looking of the men, at least – stepped forward, pleased as he could be. Q wanted dearly to disabuse the man of that notion, but seeing how he was the one tied to a chair and with his niece at their mercy, he had to admit that he was at a slight disadvantage. “I’m very sorry for the discomfort,” the man said, in a tone that rather suggested otherwise, “but we find ourselves in need of your assistance.”

        “That won’t happen unless you let her go,” he replied flatly, ignoring the way her fingers dug into his arm. “She’s not involved in this, and you had no right to bring her-”

        “Of course she’s involved, she’s a Moriarty.”

        “-here, and I cannot believe you would… what?” Q blinked. It took a moment for this information to process, and then he let out a loud groan. “Oh for goodness… you cannot be serious. This is about my brother? _Again_?!”

        He just managed to not ask how it was that even now, more than two years _after he had died_ , Jim was still able to cause so much trouble for him. It was truly insane. “What is it this time? You’re a little late for revenge, seeing how he’s been dead for a while. Or haven’t you got the newsletter?”

        The man lost some of his smugness, but compensated for it by spitting out (literally – Q could see the flecks of spittle flying, and it was not a pleasant sight at all), “Of course we know he’s dead. We also know that someone has spent the last two years dismantling his network, but they haven’t got everything yet. His connections, his passwords, his accounts and information… whatever is left, we want all of that, and you are going to give it to us.”

        For fuck’s sake, had they really been kidnapped by a group of fanboys? James was going to laugh himself sick when he found out about this, and then Q was going to have to kill him and be a single parent, and no good would come of that. He decided, even though he knew it would do nothing, to try and appeal to reason. “And what on earth makes you think I have that information to begin with?”

        The man frowned. “You’re his brother,” he said, as if that explained everything.

        “Yes, but honestly, I still haven’t figured out why you people seem to think that means something when I can assure you, it clearly does not.”

        It appeared that appealing to reason was not a very effective strategy, given the slap to the face. It didn’t hurt as much as it could have, and in fact Richelle’s tightening grip on his arm was perhaps even more painful, but the rapid escalation to violence was definitely not a good sign. “You will give us the information!”

        “And I already told you, I don’t _have_ that information,” he said as calmly as he could. He might not have good self-preservation instincts, but he wasn’t the only one at risk here. “We might have been brothers, but I was never involved in his… operations.” Operations seemed like a nice, safe word, seeing how he had never actually told Richelle what Jim had done and why he had died. He sometimes suspected that she already knew, or at least had some idea, because she had never asked. He had a feeling that after today though, they might finally have to have that talk he had been hoping to put off until the next of never.

        Q winced as he earned another slap, this one more painful than the last. It was quickly becoming apparent that he had underestimated how determined (how _desperate_ ) these men were, which made him wonder exactly what their connection to Jim was. Perhaps they were remnants of his brother’s organization, trying to stay one step ahead of the detective who had brought their boss down. He doubted they would last very long; Sherlock Holmes seemed very determined, after all.

        “You know,” Richelle said, her voice soft but dangerous, “you are making a very big mistake.”

        “Tell the girl to shut up, Moriarty,” the man snarled, although he looked slightly perturbed by the look she was giving him. Q couldn’t blame him; as superficially pleasant as Jim could be, people tended to go silent and back away quickly when his brother dropped that façade. It was as if on some sort of animal instinct, one could tell that he was a danger, and that care needed to be applied (although it was never a guarantee of survival). Sometimes he could see that part of Jim in Richelle, that look that made one question whether or not he would be surviving to the next day. It wasn’t deliberate, and really it was something in every person (he saw it often enough in himself, as well as the double-o agents who had to dig so deep into that part of themselves to survive their missions), but he imagined it was still discomforting to behold in one so young.

        His failure to quickly obey resulted in a third slap, and Richelle said angrily, “You shouldn’t hit him.”

        “You should shut up then.”

        “I’m not the one being suicidal,” she replied before Q could say anything at all. Her grip was still tight on his arm, but that was nothing compared to his rising terror as she continued, “And I really would stop that if I was you. Otherwise, Uncle James is not going to be very pleased with you.”

        “Who the fuck is-”

        That sentence was never finished because, as if to prove her point, said Uncle James came bursting through the door. Everyone’s attention had been so focused on Richelle that they were completely unprepared to deal with this new threat, and 007 was most certainly efficient. It didn’t take long at all before there were groaning men on the ground, James checking their bleeding, twitching bodies for additional weaponry as Richelle immediately went to work on his bonds, her deft fingers struggling with the tight knots.

        “I can’t believe you got kidnapped again,” James said by way of greeting, having relieved the men of any shiny yet dangerous objects they might have possessed. “It’s like a bad habit with you. And now you’re teaching it to Richelle. For _shame_.”

        Q scowled at him, “You’re just jealous because I’m more valuable than you.”

        “Of course you are,” James said soothingly, causing Q to bare his teeth at the agent. It was easy for James to be so smug when he was tied to a bloody chair, but if he had any say in it his partner was going to be regretting that smugness before the day was out. “What did they want this time?”

        “They wanted information on my brother’s network.”

        James blinked slowly, pausing in his inspection of the new weapons he had collected before pointing out the obvious. “What information? You don’t have any information on that.”

        “That’s what he tried to tell them,” Richelle said distractedly, still fussing with the ropes. He’d give his kidnappers some credit; they were excellent at tying knots, but James had been a strong proponent of teaching Richelle practical skills. And while Q would greatly have preferred to keep their work and family lived separated by an electrified chain link fence, the general unlikelihood of that made James’s lessons unfortunately necessary, as was currently being demonstrated. “But they didn’t believe him.”

        “They never do,” James sighed. “I can never tell if it is because you are so snippy or if it has more to do with people generally finding it difficult to take a teenager seriously.”

        Before he could respond by demonstrating said snippiness or better yet, attempting to kick James in the shin, Richelle smiled in quiet satisfaction as she finally worked one of the knots free. He grimaced at the pain in his wrist, although it was slightly soothed by her rubbing the blood circulation back into his freed hand, and completely forgotten after her quiet admission, “I was really scared for you.”

        Q hated that she’d been put in that position to begin with, since it was supposed to be his job to worry about her, not the other way around. He had never wanted her to get pulled into this mess of an experience, truly he hadn’t, although he had long ago accepted it as inevitable. But that didn’t mean he and James weren’t going to do their damn hardest to protect her as best they can, and to also make sure that they always came home in one piece so she wouldn’t ever have to be alone again.

        “It’s okay,” he said quietly, pulling her into an awkward, one-armed hug before pressing a quick kiss in her hair. He wasn’t sure how reassuring it was, given the loud groans of the men on the ground, the smell of blood and gunpowder, James’s protective stance in front of them, and the fact that he technically was still tied to a chair, but he supposed that was just typical of them. It might seem odd and dysfunctional to the rest of the world, but it was right for _them_.

        So he held her as tight as he could, exchanging a knowing look with James, before he said quietly, “Everything is going to be fine.”

* * *

        Of course, “fine” was a relative term, and one that was sorely tested by the inconvenient appearance of New Scotland Yard a few moments after James had finally deigned to help Richelle get Q’s other wrist free. As a general rule, Q did not like to work with the police because they tended to get very irritable about the number of bleeding bodies MI6 left behind, even if those persons deserved it. Detective Inspector Lestrade seemed a reasonable man though, or at least he’d seen enough in his life to do little more than sigh at the bleeding and groaning men.

        Less reasonable was a certain consulting detective, who had swept onto the scene with the dramatic flair of someone who could seriously benefit from a good kick in the arse. It had taken Q only a few moments to realize why Jim had been so obsessed with Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and only a few microseconds more to realize why Jim had wanted to _murder_ the man, with his stupidly billowy coat and a perpetual glare that rather suggested that everyone in his vicinity had deeply disappointed him, and they should all keep quiet lest they infect him with their collective idiocy.

        As it turned out, Holmes had indeed been keeping an eye out on the remnants of Jim’s network, and had alerted Lestrade when Q and Richelle were so rudely kidnapped off the street. Apparently the man had extensive contacts with the homeless network that almost put MI6 to shame (after all, James did still get there first), although why he had contacted the police at all was a whole other question. Based on their first twenty seconds of interaction, Q could already tell that Holmes was the ‘do-it-yourself’ kind of idiot, although he strongly suspected that the detective also needed an audience to gloat at. Which would explain why Holmes was taking such immense pleasure from pointing out that Q had managed to get himself kidnapped by the most incompetent persons left in Jim’s network (“Then why didn’t you take care of them earlier?” Richelle had muttered under her breath, only to be ignored), to the point that Q was about three seconds away asking James to shoot the detective.

        Not that he would have needed to ask; for someone who was supposed to be so observant, Holmes had either failed to notice the tightening clench in James’s jaw or simply didn’t care as he proceeded to loudly dissect the agent’s tangled past. Only a snarled, “ _Sherlock, there is a child here_ ,” from the short, ordinary (yet… oddly dangerous and familiar) looking man at his side had finally stopped him. This had sent the detective into a full-on _sulk_ , and James and Q had decided that it was time to make their hasty exit. If Detective Inspector Lestrade or the idiot detective wanted to take care of the bodies, that was on them; Q would deal with the consequences (and no doubt reams of paperwork) later, and might also have gone out of his way to make it very, very hard for Holmes to buy nicotine patches for the next three decades.

        But as bad as all of those things were, they were nothing compared to what happened a few weeks later, when he found himself bolting up so fast that he knocked over his chair and sent the before-mentioned reams of paperwork flying everywhere. He knew that all of Q-branch was staring at him in abject horror, but he couldn’t give two fucks as he snarled, “You… absolute… _prick_.”

        Because Jim’s face was grinning up at him from his phone, the words “MISS ME?” dancing across the screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many, many thanks to everyone who reviewed, left kudos, or just plain read this fic; I truly do appreciate it all. I had a ridiculous amount of fun writing this story, and I hope you enjoyed my little foray into playing with the sibling (and now family!) dynamics. :)

**Author's Note:**

> I’m (sort of) on Tumblr now! The disclaimer is that I am (extremely) hopeless at it, and am filling it with deleted scenes (that were deleted for a reason), my attempts (and failures) at shorter ficlets, and babbling about my writing (or lack thereof). But if you dare, I can be found at http://pikachumaniac.tumblr.com/.


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